'He likes family': Trump defends running mate's cat lady slur

Donald Trump on Monday defended his running mate's claims that "childless cat ladies" had destroyed American values, but also said he believed adults without children were just as good as parents.

JD Vance's 2021 comment that Vice-President Kamala Harris and other Democrats were "a bunch of childless cat ladies miserable at their own lives" resurfaced after Trump selected the Ohio senator as the Republican vice-presidential candidate.

Trump said on Fox News on Monday that Mr Vance "likes families", but that he also said he did not place a higher value on parenting.

"You know, you don't meet the right person, or you don't meet any person. But you're just as good, in many cases, a lot better than a person that's in a family situation," he said.

Ms Harris, the presumptive Democrat candidate, has two stepchildren with her husband, lawyer Doug Emhoff.

Mr Emhoff's ex-wife has called such attacks "baseless" and described Harris as a "loving, nurturing, fiercely protective" co-parent.

Trump said Mr Vance was simply trying to show how much he values family life.

"He grew up in a very interesting family situation, and he feels family is good. And I don't think there's anything wrong in saying that," Trump said.

"All he said is he does... like I mean, for him, he likes family."

Asked by Fox News television host Laura Ingraham on Monday whether he could vouch for Mr Vance as an "excellent pick" for the November election, Trump said: "He's got has tremendous , and he really does among a certain group of people - people who like families."

"That does not mean that people who aren't of a big family... he's not against anything. He loves family, it's very important to him."

Trump's comments came as a 2021 interview of Mr Vance re-emerged, where he said that childless adults were "more sociopathic" than those with children.

"Having kids makes you a better person - I believe this deeply," he said on The Chris Buskirk Show.

"The fact that so many people - especially in America's leadership class - just don't have that in their lives, you know I worry that it makes people more sociopathic and ultimately our whole country a little bit less mentally stable."

He later added that the "most deranged" and the "most psychotic" Twitter s were "people who don't have kids".

A spokesman for Mr Vance said on Tuesday that he was "was talking about politicians on the left who policies that are explicitly anti-child and anti-family".

Mr Vance has also defended his original "cat ladies" remark, saying on Friday that it was "obviously... a sarcastic comment".

"People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said," Mr Vance said on The Megyn Kelly Show.

"The substance of what I said, Megyn - I'm sorry, it's true," he added.

Mr Vance, who has three children, said he was not criticising people who do not have children.

"This is about criticising the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-children," he told .

"I wish her step-children and Kamala Harris and her whole family the very best. The point is not that she’s lesser. The point is that her party has pursued a set of policies that are profoundly anti-child."

In the original interview with Tucker Carlson, Mr Vance questioned why some leading politicians did not have children. He named Ms Harris as an example.

"The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children," he said at the time. "How does it make any sense we've turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it">Republicans have won control of both chambers of Congress, yielding Trump limited congressional oversight for at least 2 years.