In interviews with friends and colleagues of Usha Vance, wife of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) who has assumed the role as Donald Trump's running mate in the 2024 presidential election, many expressed surprise that she is going along with the campaign considering her past comments about the former president.
According to a report from the Washington Post, attorney Usha Chilukuri Vance has a reputation for being close-mouthed about her political leanings but did "express revulsion" and misgivings about Trump during the coup attempt by his followers which he encouraged after he lost to President Joe Biden.
As the Post's Peter Jamison, Beth Reinhard, Hannah Natanson and Nicole Markus are reporting, "Usha Vance rarely — if ever — volunteered her opinions on the nation’s bitterly partisan politics to friends and colleagues," but did make an exception when supporters of the former president stormed the Capitol and sent lawmakers fleeing in 2021.
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According to one friend, "Usha found the incursion on the Capitol and Trump’s role in it to be deeply disturbing," before adding, "She was generally appalled by Trump, from the moment of his first election.”
Referring to Usha Vance sitting in the presidential box at the recently concluded Republican National Convention, that same friend pointed out, "It was surreal to see her sitting next to him last night.”
The report notes, "Though she worked for prominent conservative judges and voted in the 2022 Republican primary in Ohio when her husband was on the ballot, she has registered to vote as a Democrat at least twice, records show: as a teenager in San Diego in 2004 and as a law student in New Haven, Conn., in 2010. In the fall of 2014 she registered to vote in D.C. without a party affiliation, according to elections officials."
The Post is also reporting that in 2016 when her husband wrote on Facebook that Trump was “cultural heroin. He makes some feel better for a bit. But he cannot fix what ails them, and one day they’ll realize it,” Usha Vance approvingly linked to it and commented on his "firm stand against Trump.”
According to Chad Callaghan, an Los Angeles-based writer who was friends with her in college, "Am I surprised to see Usha speaking onstage at a major political convention? No. She’s brilliant. Am I surprised to see her there to support a man who seems to be building political power by punching down at trans folks and immigrants? Yeah, that part caught me off guard.”
The Post report did note, "In her speech introducing JD, which lasted less than five minutes, Usha Vance herself offered no clues to how she was processing the moment. At a convention suffused with fervor for its presidential nominee, she did not once mention Trump."
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