Usha Vance wants a normal life. Is that possible for a VP's spouse?

WASHINGTON – Usha Vance misses plenty about her old life.

She loved being a lawyer and had aspirations beyond working at a firm. She dreams of one day returning to Cincinnati and the home she shared with her husband, JD Vance, and their three children before he became vice president. She says that’s their long-term plan.

That’s also not to say she doesn’t enjoy being second lady − she does. And quitting her job came with perks. She’s reading long books and has developed a fitness routine. 

“There are things that I miss and things that I'm excited to have moved on from,” Vance, 39, told USA TODAY in an exclusive interview as she reflected on the life she left behind a little more than a year after voters chose her husband, 41, to serve under President Donald Trump as the nation’s second-in-command.

Usha Vance is confident and self-assured but is very much a woman who’s still coming to grips with her desire to live a somewhat normal life and the constraints of being married to one of the Republican Party’s most promising politicians. His election as vice president elevated him to the top of the discussion about the 2028 race for the White House, which if he were to win means Usha Vance might not be able to get back to her old life as soon as she thought.

The couple met at Yale Law School in their 20s, before her husband wrote a bestselling memoir that was turned into a Netflix film. They were married in 2014. They’d already had two of their three children by the time he entered the national political scene. 

She was a powerful lawyer in her own right long before her husband won his Senate seat in 2022 with Trump's backing. The San Diego native clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts and future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. 

Usha Vance went on be a civil litigator at Munger, Tolles & Olson, a top-tier firm she left after her husband’s selection as Trump’s running mate.

The ensuing 18 months have tested their mettle and their marriage. Their interracial, interfaith relationship has been publicly picked apart as White Christian nationalists and fringe conservatives denigrated her faith and her Indian American heritage. 

The second lady was raised Hindu. She’s the first person of color in the nation’s 250 years to be a second spouse.

Internet gossips are increasingly spreading unfounded rumors that the couple is in distress.

“I find that one of the really curious things about this life is that people really like to read the tea leaves, and there's a kind of an industry building stories about everything that they can imagine,” Usha Vance said.

On one occasion, in late October while the Vances were on a trip to Israel, former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki suggested Usha Vance needs to be saved from her husband.

“I think it’s disgraceful, but of course, the second lady can speak for herself,” the vice president said of the remarks from Psaki, a former Biden aide and MS NOW host. Vance said he was “honored” to have his wife at his side. 

JD Vance came under fire a week later for saying at a Turning Point USA event that he’d like his wife to convert to Catholicism. She had been seen without her wedding band on more than one occasion afterward, providing new fodder for wagging tongues.

The vice president brushed off Ringgate. He told NBC News in an interview Dec. 4 that it was unintentional and said the couple gets “a kick” out of the conjecture about their marriage.

Vance said she’s indifferent, mostly. “I wear it when I wear it, and I don't when I don't,” she said matter-of-factly in the Dec. 8 interview.

Before her husband won a Senate seat, next to no one would have noticed. And those who did probably wouldn’t have cared. 

“Sometimes I'm wearing it and sometimes I've just been to the gym and showered and I'm not wearing it,” Usha Vance said.

Though she and her husband “do find it kind of funny” that people are talking about them, Usha Vance said she doesn’t “find it fruitful” to keep track of the rumors. 

“I'd rather just sort of live in my marriage and in the real world and less in kind of the fever dreams that surround it. So I mean, it is kind of a family joke, but also not something that I spend very much time thinking about,” she said.

Usha Vance speaks for herself

At the time of the USA TODAY interview, Usha Vance was preparing to host a parade of holiday parties. She had the president coming over the following afternoon for one such reception. The week before, she entertained actor Sylvester Stallone at a party celebrating his recognition as a Kennedy Center honoree.

She wore a long-sleeved, printed silk chiffon SALONI blouse with a ruffled collar – the Mel B in padma emerald – paired with black slacks and patent pointed-toe black flats as she gave a tour of the ground floor of the vice presidential residence.

Her silver and black hair hung around her shoulders. Her fingernails were bare − no polish. 

Her husband was at work. The couple’s children, Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel, had just left for school. The family’s 1-year-old pooch, Atlas, was upstairs in the family’s living quarters. He often joins the second lady’s staff meetings, but her aides worried that in this setting he’d be a distraction.

Generally speaking, Usha Vance said, the house insulates sound well and the kids, who are 8, 5 and 3, treat the entire house as their home. The Vances are the nation’s first millennial second family, and their children are the youngest to live in the home since 1975.

“They have full run of the place,” she said. When there are late-night party guests, “they come down, take a look, they run back up. They’re really good sleepers, so they’re not particularly bothered by any of it.”

She talked about their traditions and said that in their family, the vice president is the baker. He made chocolate cookies for the Secret Service for Thanksgiving, she said. He hasn’t done Christmas cookies with icing, but Usha Vance shared that her husband made a confetti cake from scratch for their family celebration. 

He’ll be making the birthday cake for their daughter Mirabel’s birthday next. She turns 4 on Dec. 19.  Usha Vance said Mirabel and the vice president made tiramisu for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney when he dined with them in October. JD Vance’s social secretary put it on the menu as “Miramisu.”

Vance also opened up about her Hindu religion, saying she grew up in Southern California with friends of all religious backgrounds. “Everything you could possibly name," she said.

The Vances are planning to spend Christmas with her family. But they also want to visit Cincinnati over the kids’ winter break, she said. As is always the case these days, their travel plans depend on what’s happening in the world and where her husband needs to be to do his job.

“We’ve been continuing to work on our house, and we treat it as our home and look forward to every opportunity we have to be there,” Usha Vance said.

She told Meghan McCain in an interview last summer that in her “dream world, eventually” she’ll be able to return to Ohio and “live in my home and kind of continue my career and all those sorts of things.” 

In a nod to her husband’s political ambitions, she told McCain, the daughter of the GOP’s 2008 presidential nominee: “If that happens, in four years, I understand. If that happens, at some other point in the future, I understand. I'm just sort of along for the ride and enjoying it while I can."

The fireplace crackled as Usha Vance, seated on a leather chair in the living room, elaborated on her goals as second lady in her conversation with USA TODAY. She said she has decided on literacy as her signature issue and plans to scale up her successful summer reading program.

She’s also looking at how to improve preschool literacy in homes and support schools and families with emerging readers in a slightly older age bracket.

“The way that I've decided to think about it is less about announcing an initiative that will gain a ton of attention but also raise expectations and controversy about what might or might not come from it,” she said, “and rather focus on projects that I think are achievable, all leading in the same direction, all contributing to the same issue, but that I can bring to completion during the time that I have in this role.”

She has examples to lean on. Jill Biden, a teacher, advocated for community colleges. Karen Pence, an artist, promoted art therapy. Doug Emhoff taught at Georgetown and focused on combating antisemitism after leaving his job as an entertainment lawyer when his wife, Kamala Harris, was elected vice president

Usha Vance said she’s taking her cues from first lady Melania Trump – with whom she traveled recently to the Camp Lejeune military base in North Carolina. 

“We really get along pretty well. I've enjoyed traveling with her a little bit and talking to her about things like raising kids in this kind of crazy life, about our interests and hobbies and that sort of thing,” she said. “And, you know, we're different people, but different people who can enjoy having conversation together. So that's been a really nice part of this experience.”

She complimented the former fashion model’s approach to the role she could eventually find herself in. 

“She is very, very focused on doing things her way, and I think very effectively,” Usha Vance said.

Melania Trump, 55, has made children her focus and discouraged bullying in her brash, name-calling husband’s first term. She has delved into international issues, more recently, using her platform to push for the repatriation of children in Russian who were forcibly taken from Ukraine.

The first lady puts “all of her energy” into every project, Usha Vance said. “And each one I think has been quite successful.” 

“She's getting things done, step by step, very methodically. And so that is an inspiration for what I try to do in areas that are a little bit different from what she's focused on,” she added.

Is that a job that Usha Vance would ever want − first lady? “I like the job that I have right now,” she replied as the interview came to an end.

Like her politician husband, Usha Vance is on message. She’s living in the real world.