Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance tried to assure NBC News Meet the press host Kristen Welker that his intention behind his “sarcastic comment” about childless cat ladies was his view that women want more “options”.

In the summer of 2021, the then US Senate candidate Tucker Carlson that he believed the United States was actually “run by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are unhappy with their own lives and the choices they have made and therefore want to make the rest of the country unhappy too.” In this interview, he mentioned the now Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harriswhose name is stepmother.

When Welker asked him about those comments, Vance said he had spoken to women and “heard over and over again that a lot of young women feel like they don’t have a choice.” He continued, “I just want women to have more choices.”

Vance spoke about how difficult it is for mothers to have children while also pursuing successful and healthy careers. This reality is difficult for the approximately 24 million working mothers (with children under 18) across the country, as they tend to earn less than their paternal counterparts and are more likely to do a larger share of the work required to keep children alive and healthy at home.

As for other difficult decisions for mothers, Vance said women should stay in violent marriages for the sake of their children.

Sunday’s MTP interview is the latest in a series of what could have been an apology tour for Vance’s past remarks, but instead has turned into a constant re-wording of the original quote. On Sunday, Welker gave her guest several opportunities to apologize directly, but to little avail.

Some women, says Welker, find the comments “a punch in the stomach.” “Do you regret that comment?” she asked.

“Look,” Vance replied, “I regret, of course, that many people have misunderstood it.”

“But do you regret what you said, Senator?” Welker asked.

“Listen, I’m going to say things from time to time that people don’t agree with. I’m a real human being. I’m going to make jokes, I’m going to say things sarcastically, and I think the most important thing is that we stay focused on the policy.”

“But again, very briefly,” Welker pressed, “given that people have told you directly, spoken up, said they felt insulted and hurt by these comments, do you wish you had never made those ‘childless cat lady’ comments?”

“I think it’s important for me to just be a normal person who sometimes says things that people don’t agree with -“

“So no regrets?” Welker interrupted.

“I have a lot of regrets, Kristen, but making a joke three years ago is not in the top ten,” Vance said with a smile.

Women across the country have shown – in polls, at the ballot box and on the streets – that they want more options. Options like If They want to have children and WHO has the right to intervene in this process – decisions that Vance has supported over the years.

When people in his own state of Ohio voted to enshrine abortion rights in the Constitution in 2023, Vance posted a scathing statement on X, formerly Twitter, saying in part: “There is something sociopathic about a political movement that tells young women (and men) that murdering their own children is liberating. So let’s keep fighting for our country’s children and find a way to win.”

In his recent Meet the Press interview, Vance claimed that his running mate, former President Donald Trumpwould not sign a nationwide ban on abortion – even though he had spoken out in favor of it during his term in office.

And when the Texas legislature passed a near-total abortion ban in 2021, Vance said, “The issue is not whether a woman should be forced to carry a child to term,” but “whether a child should be allowed to live even if the circumstances of its birth are somehow unfavorable or pose a problem to society.”

“We want women to have opportunities, we want women to have choices,” he continued in a podcast episode at the time, “but most of all, we want women and young boys in the womb to have a right to life.”