Usha Vance is in step with her husband in political views

JD Vance's criticism of working women – as childless cat ladies or “miserable” women who put careers over children – might suggest that his own wife would be a model traditional housewife.

Instead, Usha Vance is an exemplary, high-achieving child of Indian immigrants.

Just ask her childhood music teacher, Rose Muralikrishnan, with whom she began taking South Indian classical singing lessons around the age of six.

Muralikrishnan, a California-based musician, is proud of the achievements of her “brilliant” former student who is now in the national political spotlight.

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance and his wife Usha Vance take the stage during a campaign rally on Wednesday, August 28, 2024, at AmeriLux in De Pere, Wisconsin.

“I thought, 'That's my little girl!'” Muralikrishnan says of her reaction when she saw Vance take the stage at the Republican National Convention in July to introduce her husband. “I immediately messaged her mother.”

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Usha Vance was one of the top students at Yale Law School (according to classmates), where she met her future husband JD, now the junior senator from Ohio and Donald Trump's vice president. She held prestigious clerkships and worked as a corporate litigator for a white-shoe firm until July.

Campaign officials say she is instrumental in helping him prepare for Tuesday night's debate against Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, just as she was instrumental in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.

Tuesday's details:What are the rules for the “CBS News Vice Presidential Debate” between Vance and Walz? View full list

The 38-year-old was born Usha Chilukuri to Hindu Indian immigrants and grew up in San Diego. The family had close relationships with a close group of Indian professionals, many of whom, including her parents, were college professors.

Her mother, Lakshmi Chilukuri, is a provost at the University of San Diego and her father, an engineer, is a lecturer at San Diego State University. Her great aunt is the oldest professor in India and, at 96, still teaches physics at the university.

But Usha Vance is also a bit of a mystery to those who have followed her evolution from registered Democrat to alleged belief that Trump was responsible for the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to the potential role of second lady.

Her husband has made a similar evolution: from someone who was more fun-loving than political, to a “Never Trumper” and now his running mate.

In conversations with the couple's close friends and advisors, and in JD Vance's own memoirs, it is clear that he relied heavily on his wife both professionally and personally over the past decade and a half, and that the couple were in lockstep with their thinking and their ideologies have developed further.

In his memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” Vance describes his wife as his “spirit guide,” who helped him out at a fancy dinner by secretly giving him advice on the right cutlery and reminding him that “any perceived slight is no reason for Blood is “feud.”

Law studies and political development

Charles Tyler, a Yale classmate, said he wasn't surprised the two got along well. While JD was more outgoing and Usha was more studious and literary-minded, both were thoughtful and warm-hearted.

In his memoirs, JD Vance describes his future wife, whom he met when they were chosen as partners for their first major writing assignment: “She seemed to be some kind of genetic anomaly, a combination of all the positive qualities a person should have: bright, hardworking, tall and beautiful.

Tyler said her thoughtfulness was noticeable.

“If she (Usha) knew that a major life event had just happened to you and you probably don't have much bandwidth, she is the type of person who would bring food or volunteer to accompany your dog,” he said.

James Elmers, another classmate from that time, wrote in an email that Usha Vance maintained a “keen awareness of events in her friends' personal lives” despite her heavy academic load.

During their first round of employer interviews, Vance asked if he could borrow a tie from Meiles.

“In the end he chose purple – one of my favorites,” he wrote. “I remember him unintentionally running off with that tie for several weeks until Usha gently reminded him of it when she realized I needed it again.”

The temporarily hijacked tie became a running joke between them over the next three school years, he wrote.

During her time at law school, JD Vance was “recognizably conservative,” but Usha Vance never expressed very strong views on political issues in his presence, according to Tyler.

Vance's memoir takes readers through his childhood in a working-class neighborhood in Middletown, Ohio, where he barely knew his father, his mother struggled severely with addiction, and he was raised by his grandparents who had their own marital problems.

“He had these kinds of changing stepfathers, things that really hinder people's success in this world,” Tyler said. “I had no idea he would overcome all of this.”

After law school, Usha Vance, a registered Democrat until 2014, clerked for conservative justices including U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh when he was an appeals court judge.

“No daylight” between them

Jai Chabria, a family friend and political consultant, said Usha Vance had great instincts and the pair were “a team in every sense of the word.”

He said she was a “wonderful advisor” who had been involved in preparing his debate and helping him formulate his answers.

“When he goes out and gives a great speech, she advises him and gives him her opinion, and it is taken seriously,” he said.

Asked what she thought of some of his more controversial statements and his past criticism of Trump and his current endorsement of Trump, he said they “don't do big things without consulting each other.”

“There was a time when he actually didn't believe Donald Trump would be a good president,” he said, blaming the media's portrayal of the former president for influencing his thinking. “And then he realized that he was actually a great president, someone who actually delivered and made people’s lives better.”

Regarding his wife's support for Trump, he said:

“There is no clear light on current politics between the two.”

In an interview with Fox, Vance said they had many serious conversations before her husband announced his run for Senate in 2021.

“We have three children and the most important thing for us is to give them a stable, normal and happy life and a good upbringing,” she said.

When asked for her reaction to her husband's comment that the government was run by a “bunch of childless cat ladies,” she defended her husband in the Fox interview.

She said she wished people would spend less time “going through the motions.”The Three word phrase or The Three-word phrase.”

“Because what he actually said is that it can be really hard to be a parent in this country,” she said. “And sometimes our policies are designed to make it even more difficult.”

Republican National Convention

When she took the stage at the Republican National Convention, Usha Vance had a no-nonsense style — eschewing shiny makeup and going for a high-definition-friendly look. She wore a simple blue dress and visible gray streaks peeked through her shoulder-length hair.

She described her husband as a “working-class guy who had overcome childhood traumas” that she “could barely understand.”

“When JD met me, he was curious and enthusiastic about our differences. He wanted to know everything about me, where I came from and what my life had been like.”

She called her union a testament to “this great country.”

“Although he is a meat and potatoes guy, he adapted to my vegetarian diet and learned to cook Indian food from my mother,” she said.

For Muralikrishnan, the music teacher, the moment was exciting.

“I couldn’t believe where she was standing,” she said. “Right now she’s making us all so proud.”

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is the White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal

Usha Vance is in step with her husband in political views

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