Usha Vance, the first Indian American second lady in the U.S. and the youngest in decades, launched a children’s podcast on Monday.
“I always loved reading from when I was a kid until today,” said the second lady in the first episode of “Story Time with the Second Lady,” geared toward children. “And now, as a mom, story time with my kids is the highlight of my day.”
She gave viewers a tour of her office-turned-reading nook, decorated with small Lego projects created by the Vance family.
Each of the first three episodes features a book. Vance read the first one, “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” by Beatrix Potter, first published more than 100 years ago. She invited former race car driver Danica Patrick to read “Disney’s Cars” and Paralympic bronze medalist Brent Poppen to recite his own book, “Playground Lessons-Friendship & Forgiveness: Harley and His Wheelchair.”
“Because when we read, we grow,” Vance said.
In a post on X, Vice President JD Vance said, “Very proud of my wife, Usha, for launching her podcast today!”
The second lady told NBC News the podcast is “an advertisement for reading.”
Usha Vance on her pregnancy and everyday life
She expressed her “long-standing interest in education,” and this initiative seemed like a natural fit, given the second couple’s three young children — Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel — are under 10 years of age.
“As I was teaching them to read, I was starting to see some of the statistics out there about the decline in literacy rates, about the fact that this is really a long-term trend and it’s worrisome,” Vance said.
The Vances announced they are expecting a fourth child, a boy, this year, which coincides with the 250th anniversary of the United States.
Usha Vance said there are some obvious differences between this pregnancy and her past ones.
“I have to dress up a lot more. My last pregnancy, there were a lot of sweatpants,” she joked.
She also opened up about the need for normalcy in her family’s day-to-day life.
“We have our neighborhood shops. We have our Costco membership,” Vance said. She added that she’s usually in a T-shirt and jeans, with her hair up, when taking a trip to the grocery store or the library.
JD and Usha Vance’s love story began at Yale, as the Deseret News previously reported. Vance, in his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” said they got to know each other during a class assignment and fell in love.
Usha Vance worked as an attorney but left her position to serve as the second lady and support her husband, the U.S. vice president. Of hitting pause on her career, Vance said, “It was really disorienting at first to lose that.”
But she saw it as an opportunity to pursue other things she felt passionate about, adding that “when the time comes,” she intends to get back to work.
Vance told NBC she gets together with first lady Melania Trump, who has been “generous” in sharing her experiences from her previous tenure in the White House, at a time when Barron Trump, her son, was only 10 years old.
Will JD Vance run in 2028? Here’s what Usha Vance says
Asked about her closeness to the vice president on official matters, the second lady said she isn’t a staffer nor is she involved in any professional capacity.
“There’s no expectation that we are going to see eye to eye on everything,” Vance said.
“The expectation is that we are going to be open-minded and have a conversation, and that I’ll provide meaningful input from the perspective of someone who loves him and wants him to succeed. So even if we don’t agree. I think it’s always very productive.”
She told NBC News that everyone asks her whether her husband will run for president in 2028.
“My attitude is none of this has been planned,” the second lady said. “I think that my role here is to support him and what he might wish to do and to help him in this moment.”
NBC interviewers also asked Vance if she “felt fully comfortable in the universe” of conservatives, noting her previous affiliation as a Democrat in the past.
“I don’t feel like I have to walk around pretending anything of the sort. Sometimes I have thoughts that fit very comfortably into one side or another. Sometimes I have views that are way more idiosyncratic,” she said.
“It’s a world that I think is actually rather accepting of that since everyone knows that I really care about JD’s success.”