Second Lady Usha Vance told NBC News‘ Kate Snow in a sit-down interview that a presidential run in 2028 is not a “priority” for her husband, Vice President JD Vance — for now.
“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,” Vance’s wife said when asked about her husband’s potential political future. “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.”
When he first emerged on the political scene, the vice president was famously a fierce critic of President Trump. That changed over the years, though, as was evidenced by Trump’s selection of him as his vice president in 2024. Usha similarly was a registered Democrat until at least 2014. Speaking with NBC News, Vance said there is “no expectation” that her husband and her are going to agree on everything.
“I’m not his staffer. I’m not involved in this in any professional sense,” the Second Lady said. “There’s no expectation that we are going to see eye to eye on everything.”
“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,” she explained. “Even if we don’t agree, I think it’s always very productive.”
Despite once being a registered Democrat, Vance said she feels “very comfortable” in the MAGA world of the Trump administration.
“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,” she told NBC News. “I don’t feel like I have to walk around pretending anything of any sort.”
“Sometimes I have thoughts that fit very comfortably into one side or another. Sometimes I have views that are way more idiosyncratic,” Vance added. “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.”
On Monday, Vance launched her new podcast, “Storytime With the Second Lady,” which was created to try to encourage young readers to pick up more books and strengthen their literacy skills. She and her husband, meanwhile, are currently expecting their fourth child together.
Their child is expected to arrive in July, making the Vances the first vice presidential family to welcome a child while in office since the 1870s.
