Second Lady Usha Vance has shared the straightforward guidance she once gave her husband, Vice President JD Vance, offering a rare look at how she supports him through the pressures of political life.
In an interview with Rachel Campos-Duffy on Fox News, Usha said her most useful piece of advice to JD was to take a step back from social media, at least for a short period.
‘I think the best advice was to take a little bit of a social media break.’
She said the nonstop flood of updates, commentary and reaction can be draining, especially for someone operating at the heart of American politics.
‘The constant flow of stuff is just so exhausting,’ she said, noting that JD stepped away during Lent.
Usha said the pause helped her husband shift away from absorbing information continuously and instead take it in through occasional ‘bursts’ or more consolidated summaries.
In her view, that change had a real impact.
‘I personally think it helped him have some perspective about various things that he was thinking about,’ she said.
Speaking to Rachel Campos-Duffy in an interview on Fox News, Second Lady Usha Vance said the best advice she had given JD was to step away from social media during Lent
In early 2025, the Vice President was described as having an ‘X habit’, regularly posting, wading into arguments and weighing in on everything from politics and foreign policy to culture
Usha Vance addressed El-Sayed’s comments about JD Vance’s late grandfather, after his remark was widely interpreted as a reference to Usha’s Indian heritage and whether JD’s grandfather would have accepted her. Her response was notably restrained: ‘I have to admit, I kind of laughed’
Vance has developed a reputation for being unusually active on X, turning the platform into an extension of his political persona.
In early 2025, the Vice President was described as having an ‘X habit’, regularly posting, wading into arguments and weighing in on everything from politics and foreign policy to culture.
Unlike many politicians, Vance was often said to write the posts himself rather than leaving his social-media presence entirely to communications staff.
His approach is distinctly combative.
Vance has used X to take aim at opponents, spar with critics and speak directly to his supporters, cultivating the image of a politician who prefers to mix it with ordinary users rather than simply broadcasting carefully scripted messages.
And he knew he was spending a lot of time on the site.
In April 2025, Vance admitted he was probably spending ‘way less time on Twitter’ than he had six months earlier — a remark that suggested he was already aware his scrolling had become something of a habit.
That makes his decision to step away from X during Lent all the more revealing.
Vance told NBC News deleting the app from his phone made him more productive because he was no longer automatically reaching for it whenever he had a spare few minutes.
Instead of being sucked into endless scrolling, he said, he could read.
But giving up X also came at a cost.
Vance said he missed the ‘direct interaction’ the platform provided. With Secret Service protection surrounding him, he said he can find himself living in something of a bubble — insulated from the unfiltered opinions and reactions he might otherwise encounter.
Usha was also pressed about speculation surrounding her husband’s potential political future.
Asked about the possibility of JD Vance seeking the presidency in 2028, Usha did not rule it out — but stressed that the family is not making plans for a White House bid just yet.
‘Right now, that step is he’s really focused on the midterms,’ she said.
She also said she was keeping an ‘open mind and open heart’ about whatever might come next for the family, even as most political observers expect Vance to launch his candidacy after the 2026 midterms.
‘Whatever it is that he feels is the right thing for him to do, we’re going to have a good time doing it,’ she said.
But perhaps the most personal moment of the interview came when Usha was asked about comments made by Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.
El-Sayed had posted: ‘So do we think JD is taking Usha with him back in time to meet Papaw, or no…’
The remark was widely interpreted as a reference to Usha’s Indian heritage and a suggestion that JD’s late grandfather might not have accepted her.
Usha’s response was notably restrained.
‘I have to admit, I kind of laughed,’ she said.
She pointed out that she never met JD’s grandparents, James and Bonnie Vance, but said she knows the family they raised.
‘His mom, his aunt and uncle,’ she said, describing them as having been ‘nothing but incredibly loving.’
Usha went on to describe JD’s aunt as ‘like a second mother to me.’
‘And so I have to think that if they raised children like that, they would have been loving as well,’ she said, adding that she would have ‘really, really, really loved to have met’ her husband’s grandparents.
The comments also carry an added poignancy given something JD himself wrote a decade ago.
In his 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, Vance described it as one of the ‘great regrets’ of his life that his grandparents never had the opportunity to meet Usha.
