There Are So Many Weird Things About JD And Usha Vance's Marriage

J.D. Vance’s history of strange behavior made the political discourse take a bizarre turn after Donald Trump announced the Ohio senator would be his running mate. And when the internet tired of joking about J.D.’s passion for Mountain Dew and dolphin videos, its attention shifted to his marriage to Usha Vance. As it turns out, there’s also a lot of weirdness there to snark about.

On paper, J.D. and Usha are an unlikely match. J.D. grew up in Middletown, Ohio, a manufacturing town in decline. He had a tumultuous childhood, thanks in part to a father who abandoned him and a mother who experienced addiction. As for Usha, she hails from the Southern California metropolis of San Diego, where her father works as an aerospace engineer and her mother is a marine molecular biologist. Her parents are also Indian immigrants, so some critics felt it was an absurd spectacle when Usha gave a speech at the Republican National Convention before a crowd peppered with “Mass Deportations Now” signs. 

While Usha’s parents might be legal immigrants who supposedly aren’t part of the group Trump supporters want to deport, her husband has demonstrated a willingness to demonize people from other countries who move to America legally. During a September 2024 campaign rally in North Carolina, J.D. was speaking about Haitian migrants with legal status when he said, “I’m still going to call them an illegal alien.” So, J.D. has placed his Indian American wife in the awkward position of possibly having to defend his racist rhetoric in interviews — and this is just one weird aspect of their marriage.

Usha Vance was once a registered Democrat, and the Daily Beast reported that her husband described her as a Hillary Clinton supporter in 2016. According to a friend who told The Washington Post, Usha still hadn’t boarded the Trump train as of 2021 — she was disgusted by Donald Trump’s support of the January 6 insurrectionists. This is something Trump hasn’t backed down on, either, calling the attack on the U.S. Capitol a “day of love” during an October 2024 Univision town hall.

Before J.D. Vance transformed into a “weird” politician, the “Hillbilly Elegy” author wasn’t Trump’s biggest fan, either. In a 2024 interview with The New York Times, he was asked to explain why he had gone from calling Trump “America’s Hitler” to being his running mate. Despite Trump’s historically dismal approval rating as president, J.D. said he had come to see “The Apprentice” host as the solution to America’s woes, not a contributor to them. He had also concluded that Trump’s divisive rhetoric — something that had struck a chord with the insurrectionists — was a valuable tool.

While Usha dutifully joined her husband on the campaign trail and spoke at the RNC, maybe she never fully embraced all things MAGA. During a “Fox & Friends” interview, she revealed that she doesn’t agree with all of J.D.’s political views. Such ideological disagreements can break up marriages, but Usha doesn’t find them distressing at all. “We come to different conclusions all the time,” she said. “But that’s part of the fun of being married.”

When a comment J.D. Vance made about women without children went viral in 2024, Usha Vance tried to do some damage control on “Fox & Friends.” “The reality is he made a quip in service of making a point that he wanted to make that was substantive, and it had actual meaning,” she said. Usha lamented that people were taking her husband’s words out of context and retconned his remarks by adding, “What he was really saying is that it can be really hard to be a parent in this country.” Usha’s defense didn’t go over so well with some on social media, but if J.D. had originally used his wife’s rewritten script, it likely wouldn’t have caused much of a fuss. 

J.D. was not, however, being the sympathetic figure she painted him as when he uttered his now-infamous words about feline fans, which were even slyly mocked by Taylor Swift when she endorsed Kamala Harris. “We’re effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives,” J.D. said in a 2021 appearance on “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” J.D. then argued that politicians with kids — such as himself — should be given more of a say in how the country is run than those without. So, his concern was more about who is in power, not struggling parents.

J.D. Vance raised a few eyebrows in 2024 when it seemed to escape his mind that he is a father. He was discussing his family’s churchgoing habits with The New York Times when he said of his wife, “She’s got three kids.” Perhaps he realized his error, because he immediately added, “Obviously I help with the kids.” Still, his response was giving “dad who considers it babysitting when he spends any time alone watching his children” vives. His remarks were similar to a slip-up Donald Trump made that hinted at just how strange his relationship with Barron Trump is. In reference to his wife, Melania Trump, Donald said during a 2019 press conference, “She’s got a son — together.” On X, formally known as Twitter, body language and emotional intelligence expert Dr. Jack Brown called such wording an example of “significant distancing behaviors.”

J.D has made a few other cringe-worthy comments about his children that have set social media alight. While praising how well-behaved the kids in the crowd were at a 2024 rally, he joked, “Maybe I should trade you my kids for a couple of weeks. You can knock some sense into them.” He has also discussed what he would do if he were to have another partner. On the “Full Send” podcast, J.D. Vance recalled being asked if he had “a secret family” when he was being vetted as a veep candidate. “If I did, I’m not going to admit it in front of my wife,” he said.

Usha Vance and J.D. Vance met at Yale Law School, and it seems it wasn’t the latter’s wit or charm that impressed his future wife. “I liked that he was very diligent,” Usha told NBC News. She also praised J.D.’s punctuality. The Vances were so popular at Yale that they earned their own portmanteau, much like celebrity couples do: “Judusha.” However, some of the alumni they were once friendly with don’t approve of the pair giving themselves over to the MAGA side. Speaking to The Washington Post about Usha, former classmate Chad Callaghan said, “Am I surprised to see her there to support a man who seems to be building political power by punching down at trans folks and immigrants? Yeah, that part caught me off guard.” 

Another ex-classmate of the Vances, Sofia Nelson, revealed that their long friendship with J.D. ended over his anti-trans views. Nelson, who is transgender, shared some of their past correspondences with The New York Times, which illustrate how much J.D. has changed. In one of them, he expressed concern that Usha having no “ideological chops” might prevent her from scoring a Supreme Court clerkship. According to The New York Times, Nelson was also among the Vances’ 50-plus ex-classmates who raised money for the targets of J.D.’s hateful rhetoric after he vilified Haitian migrants living in Springfield, Ohio. When making his donation, one Yale alumni wrote, “With love and a prayer that J.D. Vance and Usha Chilukuri Vance find the moral strength to reverse the course of their lives.”

Race played a central role in J.D. Vance and Usha Vance’s relationship. While attending Yale, they led a group that met up to exchange views about white Americans’ societal deterioration, per The New York Times. The topic of race came up again when J.D. became Donald Trump’s running mate. When white supremacists realized J.D. was married to an Indian American woman, he got a sobering reminder of some of the unsavory characters he was traveling with by hitching his wagon to the Trump campaign. On his Rumble show, far-right pundit Nick Fuentes, who has met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, said of J.D., “What kind of man marries somebody named Usha? Clearly, he doesn’t value his racial identity, his heritage.”

During an appearance on “The Megyn Kelly Show,” J.D. addressed the racist attacks on his wife. “I love her because she’s who she is. Obviously, she’s not a white person and we’ve been attacked by some white supremacists over that, but I just I love Usha,” he said. “She’s such a good mom.” J.D.’s poor phrasing made it sound a bit like he was saying Usha was a good mother despite not being white. He also failed to forcefully disavow the white supremacists in his party when provided with the perfect opportunity to do so. Instead, he quickly changed course and steered his conversation toward criticizing the left and the childless.

To hear J.D. Vance tell it, being in a relationship with him is kind of like being a plumber trying to survive in the treacherous Mushroom Kingdom. Sometimes, you find yourself confronted by walking bombs. Other times, it’s turtle that slows your progress. In his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” J.D. recalled what Usha said to him when likening him to one of the animals: “Whenever something bad happens — even a hint of disagreement — you withdraw completely. It’s like you have a shell that you hide in.”

J.D. also admitted that he has taken his anger out on Usha by yelling at her, and he compared himself to a ticking time bomb when describing what he’s like. “Even at my best, I’m a delayed explosion — I can be defused, but only with skill and precision,” he wrote. “It’s not just that I’ve learned to control myself but that Usha has learned how to manage me.” So, he doesn’t seem to have taken full responsibility for his toxic behavior and anger issues — instead, he expects his wife to navigate his emotional minefield and figure out how to calm him down.

Catering to a family’s different diet preferences can be a challenge — expanding each meal’s menu means more time spent in the kitchen and a heftier grocery bill. But according to Usha Vance, her husband was willing to put in the work for her. “Although he’s a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, he adapted to my vegetarian diet and learned to cook food from my mother — Indian food,” she said in her RNC speech. The line didn’t exactly get an enthusiastic reaction. But don’t worry — J.D. made up for it by taking his vegetarian wife with him when he toured a butcher’s shop in Pennsylvania.

Usha and J.D. Vance aren’t raising their kids to be vegetarians. During a campaign stop at a supermarket, J.D. was joined by his two sons, Vivek and Ewan. In a video tweeted by C-SPAN communications director Howard Mortman, J.D. says of the boys, “These guys actually eat about 14 eggs every single morning.” Imagine how many egg cartons the Vances have to stuff in their fridge to make this possible.

The PatriotTakes Twitter account also posted videos of J.D., Usha, Vivek, and their daughter Mirabel participating in what appeared to be a staged moment at a diner. The two children drank chocolate milk while strangers awkwardly watched them, and J.D. took away Mirabel’s drink before she finished it. Of campaigning with three kids, Usha said in her “Fox & Friends” convo, “I don’t think we expect to make them a real feature of any of this.” Sure, Jan.

When it comes to her stylistic choices, Usha Vance is unlike many of the other women in the MAGA extended universe. She seems to favor a more natural look, as opposed to the excessively stuccoed and varnished visages of Kimberly Guilfoyle and Lara Trump. However, there’s a pervasive rumor that J.D. Vance wears eyeliner to increase the intensity of his bright blue eyes. “The Sixth Sense” star Haley Joel Osment even wore eyeliner when parodying the politician for a “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” video.

The idea that J.D. would try to go all Robert Pattinson by rocking dramatic eyeliner was so believable to some people that Usha was asked to address the rumors. Alas, the politician is not trying to channel Batman or Taylor Swift. According to Usha, what people are seeing isn’t dark makeup but her hubby’s lush, full lashes. She also made sure to note that he does not use falsies to beef them up. “They’re all natural,” she told Puck News. “I’ve always been jealous of those lashes.”

Usha Vance dropped her career like a hot potato to stand by her man when J.D. Vance joined the Trump ticket. She was working at a law firm in San Francisco at the time and released a statement to SFGATE that read in part: “I have resigned from my position at Munger, Tolles & Olson to focus on caring for our family.” In a 2024  “Fox & Friends” interview, Usha made it sound like she did so reluctantly while discussing how her husband’s political ambitions were impacting their family. “I’m not raring to change anything about our lives right now, but I believe in J.D. and I really love him, and so we’ll just sort of see what happens,” she said.

At a rally, J.D. joked about Usha’s reluctance to speak at the events. He also made the odd decision to seemingly allude to a tongue-in-cheek, viral rumor that he once had sex with a couch. “I would call her up here to come and speak but then I think I’d have to sleep on the couch,” he said at a Nevada rally in 2024. With Melania Trump stepping back from the spotlight during Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential run, Usha might have taken a page from the former first lady by sitting the campaign out. She also could have borrowed some wise words from Avril Lavigne by saying, “See you later, boy,” to her meat-and-taters boy.

Apparently, J.D. just expects women to drop everything for him. On “The Portal” podcast, he bragged about how Usha’s mother left her job to provide a year of free childcare for them. “It was just one of these things where it’s like, this is what you do,” he said.

Usha Vance is Hindu, and some influential figures on the far-right, such as Nick Fuentes, weren’t happy when they learned this. “Clearly, [J.D. Vance] doesn’t value his religion,” Fuentes said on his show. “He doesn’t marry a woman that professes Jesus Christ? What does that say about him?” However, J.D. actually credited Usha for supporting him when he rediscovered his passion for religion and decided to convert to Catholicism. “I don’t think I would have ever done it without her support,” he told The New York Times. Speaking to “Fox & Friends” about why she was on board with J.D.’s conversion, Usha said, “I knew that J.D. was searching for something. This just felt right for him.”

With J.D.’s new religion came feelings of guilt — unrelated to what the scriptures say about sinning. He explained that Usha attends church with him, and she’s the one whose job it is to make sure that their kids behave during the service. “I just felt kind of bad,” he told The New York Times. “Like, oh, you didn’t sign up to marry a weekly churchgoer.”

J.D. Vance has a history of denigrating childless women who prioritize their careers. There’s the “childless cat ladies” comment and several other examples, including what he said during a 2021 appearance on the “Moment of Truth” podcast. When making his point, he singled out women who went to school at Yale, as he and Usha Vance did. After criticizing them for having the audacity to put their degrees to use by dedicating a lot of time to their jobs, he said, “That is actually a path to misery.” He argued that they should be starting families instead. During a 2020 interview for “The Chris Buskirk Show,” J.D. suggested that the child-free aren’t just hurting themselves but the entire nation. “I worry that it makes people more sociopathic and ultimately our whole country a little bit less mentally stable,” he said.

Usha was once a childless woman who was focusing on her career. And guess what she was also doing while attending Yale with J.D.? Proving that a woman without children had value to him personally. In “Hillbilly Elegy,” J.D. described Usha as his “Yale spirit guide.” He also marveled over her intelligence. “She instinctively understood the questions I didn’t even know to ask, and she always encouraged me to seek opportunities that I didn’t know existed,” he wrote. If Usha was busy caring for three kids back then, how would she have found the time to parent J.D.? And without her guidance, would he have even become Donald Trump’s VP pick?