Ellen Schmidt/AP
Sen. JD Vance of Ohio said that a lawyer presumably sent by the Trump campaign asked him if he had any "secret family" during the vice presidential vetting process in an interview that took place with his wife, Usha Vance, sitting near him.
"At one point, the lawyer said, 'Well, I'm going to ask some uncomfortable questions, '" Vance recounted on the Full Send Podcast in an episode published on Friday. I was like, ''OK, have at it.'"
The lawyer, Vance said, then asked, "Do you have any secret family?"
Vance, who described the detailed examination of his life as "bizarre" and "intrusive," said the question took him aback. He quickly denied having any such family after it became clear what the lawyer meant.
"I'm like, 'Are you serious? Do I have any secret family? Like, what do you mean?'"
The lawyer, whom Vance did not name, said that some public figures have children or spouses who are not publicly known.
"He said, 'Well, sometimes people will have like another spouse, or they will have like other kids in a place like Alaska,'" Vance recounted.
Vance said he responded, "Dude, I've never even been to Alaska."
The whole line of questioning was particularly odd, Vance added, since his wife was sitting right next to him.
"'Oh, by the way, if I did, I'm not going to admit it in front of my wife,'" Vance said, laughing.
The Ohio senator said if someone had hidden such a secret for so long, they would probably not openly reveal it.
"It's one of those questions where if you've gotten to that point in your life and you're such a dishonest person that you have a secret family in Alaska, I think that most people would just, I assume, hide it at that point," he said.
While little is often made public about vice presidential vetting, politicians who have gone through it have often described it as cumbersome and intrusive. Would-be vice presidential nominees are asked to turn over copies of every public statement they have made along with bank records. Vance said he was also asked if any family members would publicly criticize him.
The reason campaigns go to such lengths to vet potential running mates is that they want to be prepared for the media scrutiny that will come. Traditionally, presidential nominees have been running for the White House for a year or more and are more well known at the national level. In contrast, vice presidential nominees are usually not as well known, and their selection occurs with only a few months left in the campaign. If he's elected, Vance, who has spent roughly 18 months in the Senate, would be one of the youngest vice presidents in history.
In an interview, before he was selected, Vance said he was asked more standard questions, such as whether he had a criminal history.
"Certainly, like, you know, have you committed a crime? Have you ever lied about this — certainly, you have those conversations," Vance said during a June interview on Fox and Friends.
There have also been examples of politicians who tried to hide children from the public eye. The most recent example is former Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker, whose 2022 Georgia Senate campaign was rocked by allegations that he tried to hide three children. Walker, a staunch Trump ally, denied that he had secret kids, but the scandal was one of many that helped doom his campaign to oust incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat.
According to a 2011 Washington Post article, at least eight other politicians have also tried to keep children they had with other women out of the spotlight. Another example is former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee. After years of denials, Edwards admitted in 2010 that he fathered a child with a campaign videographer during their affair.
