Usha Vance laughed off a social media attack from Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed that critics called racist.
The Second Lady, 39, addressed the controversy in a Fox & Friends interview taped for Wednesday’s broadcast, responding to El-Sayed’s weekend post that invoked her Indian heritage to mock her husband, Vice President JD Vance, 41. El-Sayed, 40, fired the salvo on Saturday after Vance criticized his past remarks defending Sharia law.
“I have to admit I kind of laughed,” Usha Vance told Fox & Friends, adding that she always felt comfortable with Vance’s relatives in Ohio.
The Michigan Democrat had posted: “So do we think JD is taking Usha with him back in time to meet Papaw, or no…” The comment appeared to reference Usha Vance’s ethnicity while alluding to Vance’s late grandfather, James Vance, whom the vice president called “Papaw.” Vance’s grandparents died years before he met Usha in 2010 when both were students at Yale Law School.
Usha Vance offered a gracious rebuttal focused on the family she did meet. “Yes, I never met JD’s mamaw and papaw,” she said in the interview. “I do know and love the children that they raised: his mom, his aunt and uncle. And they have never been anything but incredibly loving. His aunt is like a second mother to me. I have to think that, if they raised children like that, they would’ve been loving as well and I would have really, really, really loved to have met them,” she continued.
The Second Lady said she had never visited Ohio before dating Vance and found her preconceptions shattered. “It’s a culturally diverse place,” she said. “The people have been so welcoming. Everyone has been so loving. They are my family. They treat me like their family.”
Vice President Vance, campaigning in Ohio earlier this week, had targeted El-Sayed’s record on Sharia law. He discussed his grandfather, who worked as a welder for 40 years and voted Democrat because he believed it was “the party of union men.”
“I’d love to go back in time and tell my papa that there is a man who claims to stand for working people who says not only should we have Sharia law, but if you criticize it you’re a white supremacist. That’s not my grandpa’s Democratic Party,” Vance said at the Ohio event.
Republicans rushed to defend the Vances online. “Why does Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed just assume that all white Midwestern grandparents are racist?” asked Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas.
In the viral moment that sparked the exchange, Vance had pointed to El-Sayed’s past remarks linking criticism of Sharia law to white supremacy as evidence that Democrats had abandoned working-class voters. El-Sayed previously ran for Michigan governor in 2018 and has positioned himself as a progressive voice in the state.
The vice president credited James Vance with being a stabilizing and influential figure during his turbulent childhood. The elder Vance’s four-decade career as a welder and steadfast Democratic loyalty became central to his grandson’s political memoir and subsequent rise to national office.
The full Fox & Friends interview with Usha Vance is scheduled to air Wednesday morning.