Usha Chilukuri Vance, Sen. JD Vance's (R-Ohio) wife, hasn't been known for being publicly outspoken about politics.
But according to The Washington Post, the Indian-American attorney had a lot to say privately about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. And now that her husband is Donald Trump's presidential running mate, she is helping promote someone she once condemned.
Post reporters Peter Jamison, Beth Reinhard, Hannah Natanson and Nicole Markus explain, "Vance told friends she was outraged by Trump's incitement of the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol and lamented the social breakdown that fueled his political support, according to one friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations."
Usha Chilukuri Vance's "view at the time," the journalists note, "contrasts with the later pronouncements of her husband and Trump's newly minted running mate, JD Vance, who has downplayed the storming of the Capitol and called participants who were jailed 'political prisoners.'"
The friend told the Post, "Usha found the incursion on the Capitol and Trump's role in it to be deeply disturbing. She was generally appalled by Trump, from the moment of his first election."
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The friend added that "it was surreal to see" Usha Chilukuri Vance "sitting next to" Trump during the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
"That sensation is widely shared among her friends, former co-workers and fellow alumni, more than two dozen of whom spoke to The Washington Post for this story," Jamison, Reinhard, Natanson and Markus report. "Some watched in disbelief on July 17 when Usha Vance, 38, addressed an overwhelmingly white crowd on the convention floor that tittered uneasily as she joked about her husband learning to cook Indian food and audibly gasped when she mentioned her vegetarian diet."
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