JD Vance joked that his wife, Usha Vance, may be qualified to run the federal budget after she revealed she bought her coral maternity dress from Old Navy for just $8.75.
The Second Lady, who is expecting the couple’s fourth child, responded after a New York Times fashion column used a Father’s Day video of her and the vice president to discuss what it described as the broader political symbolism of high-profile pregnancies within the Trump administration.
In her post, Vance included a screenshot showing the dress had first been listed at $49.99 before being reduced to $12.49, with additional promotional discounts bringing the final price down by another $3.74.
The vice president responded with apparent approval in a quote tweet, writing: “She bought a $50 dress for $8.75. America: meet your next director of the federal budget!”
He also reposted the Second Lady’s pointed response to the newspaper’s analysis.
“Now that we know the political significance of my $8.75 coral maternity dress from Old Navy, can’t wait to hear what the New York Times has to say about my elastic-waistband pants and compression socks!” Usha Vance wrote on X.
The article in question, written by Times fashion critic Vanessa Friedman and titled “The Politics and Power of the Pregnancy Image,” looked at the public pregnancies of Vance, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Katie Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
Friedman’s column opened by referencing an Instagram Reel the Vances shared for Father’s Day.
JD Vance pitched his wife Usha to run the federal budget after she slammed the reaction to her coral maternity dress bought from Old Navy for less than $10
Second Lady Vance, who is expecting her fourth child, took aim at The New York Times after its fashion critic used a Father’s Day video of the couple to examine what it described as the wider political messaging around prominent pregnant women in the Trump administration
In the clip, Usha Vance tells her husband that their growing family means he will have many more years of reading to children.
‘Luckily, there’s going to be a new baby for you to read to,’ she says in the video. ‘So you’re going to have many more years ahead of you.’
JD Vance replies: ‘I was not yet ready to be out of the baby phase, so here we are, about to jump right in, in just a few short weeks.’
Friedman noted that Usha Vance was wearing a ‘stretchy coral dress’ that emphasized her pregnancy and said the video offered a particularly direct public introduction to the couple’s coming arrival.
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She also pointed to Leavitt’s recent birth of her second child and Katie Miller’s birth of her fourth child, describing the three pregnancies as coincidental but significant in the context of the administration’s wider image-making.
‘That three such prominent women in the MAGA movement were pregnant at pretty much the same time was, indubitably, a coincidence,’ Friedman wrote.
But she argued the pregnancies had nevertheless created a ‘consistent’ public picture of the White House’s family and fertility agenda.
‘If the bare-chested, muscled mixed martial arts fighters of the U.F.C. match that President Trump hosted on Flag Day were the poster guys for MAGA’s image of masculinity,’ Friedman wrote, ‘then the pregnant women of Trump world are one half of their feminine counterparts.’
Vice President Vance was greatly impressed, reacting in a quote tweet: ‘She bought a $50 dress for $8.75. America: meet your next director of the federal budget!’
The columnist said Usha Vance’s pregnancy also helped present a more personal side of the vice president.
‘As second lady, her job is also to represent and humanize the vice president,’ Friedman wrote. ‘By spotlighting her pregnancy, she is doing exactly that.’
Vance has been promoting his religious journey in a new book that could ultimately serve as a sort of origin story for a future presidential campaign.
‘Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith’ comes out Tuesday from Harper, and The Associated Press obtained a copy ahead of its release.
The HarperCollins imprint also put out ‘Hillbilly Elegy,’ the best-selling memoir from 2016 that helped make Vance a national figure.
Vance has been working on and off on his new book since then, a tumultuous decade that included a Hollywood movie about his youth, a short stint as a US senator from Ohio and now vice president to Donald Trump .
