Barack Obama has rebuked Vice President JD Vance over his immigration rhetoric, noting that Vance is married to the daughter of immigrants.
Obama made the remarks during a July 7 appearance on Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, part of a series on Reconstruction and its long-term influence on the United States. The Daily Beast reported on the exchange.
When Gladwell asked how he sees the current state of the country, Obama said one of the two major parties has increasingly embraced a version of politics that narrows who is included in the idea of ‘we the people’.
“When you have the current Vice President making a speech that is basically a blood and soil version of ‘we the people,'” Obama said.
“That it matters who your parents were and how long they’ve been here. Despite him being married to…the daughter of an immigrant himself.”
Obama was referring to Usha Vance, whom JD Vance met while both were studying at Yale Law School. The pair later married in an interfaith ceremony. She was born in the US to parents from India, which meant she received American citizenship at birth. Their immigration status at that time has not been publicly disclosed.
His remarks were widely understood as a reference to a February 2026 speech Vance delivered, in which he said the US is defined by a ‘particular set of beliefs and way of life’. In that same speech, he said that descendants of those who fought in the Civil War have “a hell of a lot more claim over America than the people who say they don’t belong.”
Vance, who in 2016 was often viewed as a more moderate Republican and a critic of Trump, has since emerged as one of the most recognizable MAGA-aligned figures in the party.
He has also forcefully opposed birthright citizenship, the constitutional principle that grants citizenship to anyone born on US soil.
On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court upheld birthright citizenship and rejected the Trump administration’s effort to strip citizenship from children born in the US to parents who were not citizens. Vance called the ruling a ‘huge mistake.’
The conversation between Obama and Gladwell also focused on the 14th Amendment, which was adopted during Reconstruction to establish citizenship, voting rights, and equal protection under the law for formerly enslaved people.
Those who oppose birthright citizenship argue that its present-day use is being abused by people seeking American citizenship for their children simply by giving birth in the country.
Obama and Gladwell also reflected on how dramatically the country has changed. Before the Supreme Court decision that legalized interracial marriage, the idea of a sitting vice president delivering nativist rhetoric while being married to a woman of Indian descent would have seemed impossible. ‘Hypocrisy is progress’, Obama said.
Though deeply critical of the administration, Obama ended the discussion on a hopeful note, saying he believes the gains made toward a multiracial democracy over recent decades will endure.
“I don’t get cynical,” Obama said. “We have evidence of a better version of America. We’ve seen it.”