Vice President JD Vance on Friday dismissed a wave of online speculation about his marriage, saying his relationship with Second Lady Usha Vance is “as strong as it’s ever been.”
He said the couple has taken the growing swirl of social media rumors in stride, opting to laugh off the speculation about their personal lives.
This comes after a recent rash of tabloid-style headlines that surfaced when the second lady was photographed without her wedding ring.
“I think that we kind of get a kick out of it,” Vance said in an interview with NBC News, when asked whether the recent controversy had frustrated him.
“With anything in life, you take the good with the bad,” Vance said, adding that "there are some sacrifices and there are some very good things that come along with it, too. But our marriage is as strong as it’s ever been, and I think Usha’s really taken to it, and it’s been kind of cool to see how she’s developed and evolved in this new role.”
The couple’s marriage drew online scrutiny after Usha Vance was spotted without her wedding ring during a November 19 visit to Camp Lejeune, a military training facility in Jacksonville, North Carolina, where she accompanied First Lady Melania Trump.
The attention intensified in October when former White House press secretary Jen Psaki sparked controversy by joking about “saving” Usha Vance from her marriage to the vice president, prompting a sharp response from the White House.
Responding after the photos of her missing wedding ring went viral, a spokesperson for the second lady said in a statement that she is “a mother of three young children, who does a lot of dishes, gives lots of baths and forgets her ring sometimes.”
Vance shared a more recent anecdote from a few days earlier, recounting how he and his wife were rushing to the White House before the second lady departed for another event with Melania Trump. As she got into the car, Usha Vance realized she had once again left her rings behind after taking a shower.
“She was like, ‘Oh, if I don’t go back and get them, there’s going to be some ridiculous psycho who talks about it on social media,’” Vance was quoted as saying by NBC News. “And I was like, let them. It’s not even worth the trip to run back upstairs. So we actually have a little bit of fun with it. And we thought that whole viral social media cycle was kind of funny.”
The vice president addressed the situation when asked whether such stories had been difficult for the couple, who tied the knot in 2014.
“It’s funny,” he said. “I actually don’t think that it’s tough.”
The couple has been in the spotlight since US President Donald Trump chose Vance as his running mate for the 2024 presidential election.
They met at Yale Law School, married in 2014, and have three children. Usha Vance previously worked as a trial lawyer at the Munger, Tolles & Olson law firm but stepped away from her career shortly after her husband joined the ticket.
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