From her speech, Americans learned that J.D. Vance learned to cook Indian dishes, including taking into account his wife’s vegetarian diet.
And when it came time to defend her husband, she was ready to do that too.
Last July, J.D. Vance’s earlier comments calling some Democratic politicians “childless catwomen” resurfaced on social media, and it was his wife who seemed to do most of the damage control. to stop the next noise.
She described his remarks as a “joke,” reframing them as a reflection on the challenges facing working families in America, and said she wished critics would look at the larger context of what her husband said.
In an interview with the Fox television channel, she admitted that she did not agree with her husband on all political issues, but said that she never doubted his intentions.
“Usha was never a very political person,” Jay Jay Sneadow, a former Yale law classmate of the couple, told the BBC. “What America saw in her as a very impressionable, low-key person, the reality is – that’s what she is.”
Charles Tyler says Usha Vance doesn’t fit into any political box.
“The reason many people have difficulty characterizing her politics is not that she keeps her cards close to her vest,” he says, “but that she doesn’t conform to the ideological tribes that most of us associate with identified herself.”
That will likely serve her well as second lady of the United States, a role that has historically been removed from the harsh politics of Washington.
But with JD Vance’s star firmly on the rise, few who know the power couple doubt that Usha Vance will continue to serve as his spiritual guide, perhaps even one day as First Lady of the United States.