WASHINGTON — Second lady Usha Vance on Friday said that she and her husband, Vice President JD Vance, don’t always see eye to eye on every issue, but that the room for disagreement creates space for “open-minded” conversations.
“I’m not his staffer. I’m not involved in this in any professional sense. … There’s no expectation that we are going to see eye to eye on everything,” Vance said.
“The expectation is that we are going to be open-minded and have a conversation, and that I’ll provide meaningful input from, you know, the perspective of someone who loves him and wants him to succeed. So even if we don’t agree, it’s — I think it’s always very productive.”
Vance sat down with NBC News for a 30-minute interview in her new studio ahead of the launch of her podcast, “Storytime With the Second Lady,” which premieres Monday.
Vance, 40, spoke about her shift from being a Democrat to voting Republican, whether her husband plans to run for president in 2028, their decision to have another child, and why she felt strongly about creating a podcast to encourage young readers.
In late January, the Vances announced they were expecting their fourth child, a boy, in July. JD and Usha Vance would be the first vice presidential family in modern history to welcome a child while in office.
On her role in JD Vance’s job as vice president
The second lady said she considers herself a trusted adviser to her husband, especially when he’s taking a position on an issue that is “important personally.”
“There are conversations all the time,” Vance said. “I do really like to understand what’s going on in his world, what he’s really focused on, what concerns he has, because it’s a marriage. I mean, I want to be supportive of him, and if I don’t really know what’s going on, then I can’t do that.”
She added that the vice president has an entire staff of policy advisers, but he comes to her “when something is troubling him” or “when he really wants to talk through something that feels more, kind of, intensely personal or important personally.”
Vance said her husband’s future political prospects aren’t a “priority” in their current private conversations, even though he’s widely expected to run for president in 2028.
“JD is very focused on the midterm elections right now, on all the things that are happening right this moment, which are obviously exceedingly important. And so if you come back in 2027 and ask me, I’ll have a better sense of, you know, what he’s thinking in that way. But that’s not the priority in our conversations,” Vance said in response to questions about a potential presidential campaign.
The vice president himself said in a December interview with NBC News that he wouldn’t decide whether to run for president until after the 2026 midterm elections.
“I try to not wake up and ever think, ‘What does this mean for my future?’ I always try to think, ‘How can I do a good job right now,’ right? And that’s one of the reasons why I’ve tried to steer away from the 2028 conversation. … I never want the focus on the future to come at the expense of this job,” he said at the time.
The second lady, who was a registered Democrat until at least 2014 and voted Republican when her husband ran for Senate, was asked if she feels fully comfortable in the political universe she’s in now. She said that she’s never felt pressure to conform to any policy ideas even though her views don’t always fit neatly on the political spectrum.
“I do feel very comfortable in that no one has ever asked me to engage in any kind of litmus test on anything. And what I’ve found is that I was myself in 2014. I can be myself today. And I feel very comfortable in that world,” Vance said.
“I don’t feel like I have to walk around pretending anything of any sort. I didn’t think I had to do that [in 2014], actually. Sometimes I have thoughts that fit very comfortably into one side or another. Sometimes I have views that are way more idiosyncratic,” she added. “And it’s a world that I think is actually rather accepting of that, since everyone knows that I really care greatly about JD’s success.”
Vance also spoke about her role breaking barriers as the first second lady to be Hindu, saying she doesn’t feel “pressure” being the first.
“Everything about this is so novel that this is just one element of the novelty, in many ways,” she said.
Expecting a fourth child
Vance will be the first person to give birth while her husband is vice president since the 1870s.
“I learned that after I was pregnant,” she said with a laugh, adding that this pregnancy is far different from her previous three because she has to dress up more often for her role as second lady.
“My last pregnancy, there were a lot of sweat pants,” she said. “I was working from home — you know, sometimes put a blazer on over what was under.”
She also responded to her husband’s viral comments from an event in Michigan this month in which the vice president said he was “persuasive” enough to convince her to have a fourth child.
“I remember when we decided to run for vice president, I said, ‘Honey, I really want to have a fourth kid.’ And she said, ‘Well, you can become vice president or you can have a fourth baby,’” the vice president recounted. “But, ladies and gentlemen, I am persuasive, because I got both.”
Usha Vance laughed when asked to respond to the remarks, saying her husband did persuade her to have another child, “in a manner of speaking,” although “I’ve never closed the door on that.”
The couple’s three children — two boys and one girl — are currently ages 4, 6 and 8.
“I grew up in a family of two. And I thought that was a great number. And then I had two kids, and I thought — I didn’t feel quite done, right?” Vance said. “So I really wanted to have a third child.”
She said that after having their third child their family felt complete, but she still entertained having another.
“We have our daughter, who’s amazing, and it was great. And so I just wasn’t sure. But as time passed, I realized that I was feeling more and more, kind of, excited about that possibility.”
“And so if there was a chance, I should take it, and I knew that I’d be happy if we only had three kids, and I knew that I’d be happy if we had four. And so here we are.”
The new podcast and family life
The second lady said her children helped with the design and decor of her podcast studio, where she’ll record episodes of the show. The first three episodes will premiere on Monday, featuring one episode with the second lady reading solo, one episode with racing legend Danica Patrick and one episode with Paralympian and author Brent Poppen.
“It’s a podcast that really is just for children. The notion is we will have someone come in — a special reader, we’re calling them — read a fun book, have a very short little conversation about things related to the book, maybe about their career, if they have some sort of interesting background,” Vance said. “And then invite children to pick up books on their own. It’s sort of just an advertisement for reading.”
The target audience for the podcast, the second lady said, is kids who are in late preschool or early elementary school. Vance said each episode will range between 10 to 15 minutes.
Vance added that part of the inspiration for starting a podcast for children featuring books was her experience teaching her own kids to read.
“I’ve taught all of them to read now. Our 4-year-old is just at the end of the early process,” she said.
The second lady added that while teaching her children to read was “this most amazing thing,” she was also “starting to see some of the statistics out there about the decline in literacy rates, about the fact that this is really a long-term trend, not just a pandemic-related thing.”
She added that declining literacy among children is “worrisome,” and seeing the statistics led her to think, “If I was going to do anything, this would be the thing to focus on at this moment in time.”
Vance added that she hopes the podcast will inspire parents to read to their children at home, saying, “There’s just a lot that people can do in their family home without a ton of resources or effort.”
The second lady also spoke about some aspects of daily life that she tries to maintain despite the spotlight on her family, which lives in the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington.
“We have our neighborhood shops. We have our Costco membership,” Vance said, adding that making those trips as the second family is always “an adventure.”
“We have all our favorite things that we get,” she said. “They pick their lunchbox items from there. It’s just sort of a family tradition. It’s the kind of stuff that you don’t want to let go when you have a family life and you move into something like the Naval Observatory.”
She’s also maintained the love of reading that drew attention from the public on the campaign trail in 2024 by joining a book club, she said, which includes “some neighbors of mine.”
“One of the other advantages of my position is that, in reality, people don’t recognize me all that much. And if I wear my jeans and a T-shirt and pull my hair up and go to the grocery store or go to the library, maybe someone will notice,” Vance said. “But for the most part, I can just do those kinds of things. And I try to make a point of it, you know, not to be afraid to get out there. And I find I’m always pleasantly surprised.”