Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha, announced the birth of their fourth child on Sunday.
Vance, in a post online, said Alec Neel Vance was born Sunday morning and both baby and mom were “happy and healthy.”
“Our kids are overjoyed to meet their little brother,” the post said.
Vance also thanked the staff at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and the White House Unit and said they were “deeply thankful for all they have done for our family.”
Usha Vance’s delivery is a history-making one. No second lady or vice president has welcomed a child while in office in more than 150 years. The last known vice president who had a child while in office was Schuyler Colfax in 1870, according to the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University.
President Donald Trump shared an image online of three of the Vance children, with Alec being held by his new big brother.
“Congratulations! A perfect baby boy for the wonderful Vance family,” Trump said.
Warm wishes were sent to the Vances after the announcement from both sides of the political aisle. Utah Sen. Mike Lee replied to Vance’s post, saying, “Congratulations!” Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said he was “glad to hear that both she and the baby are well.”
The Vances met at Yale Law School while working at the Yale Law Journal in 2010 and were married four years later.
In addition to the new baby, they have three children, sons Ewan, 9, and Vivek, 6, and daughter Mirabel, 4.
The couple were reportedly influenced by Erika Kirk to have a fourth baby. “Fox & Friends” on Monday said Kirk wished she had more children with Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated last September in Utah.
Former Deseret News reporter Gitanjali Poonia noted that “Neel” in Hindi and Sanskrit means blue, often used to symbolize calmness, the depth of the ocean and has other ties to nature.
Trump administration baby boom
Usha Vance is one of several women associated with the Trump administration to be expanding their families.
Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, a White House deputy chief of staff, had their fourth child on June 3. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt welcomed her second child in May and recently returned to the podium after maternity leave.
Vanessa Friedman, a critic at The New York Times, describes the three pregnancies as an example of the administration’s family and fertility efforts.
“If the bare-chested, muscled mixed martial arts fighters of the U.F.C. match that President Trump hosted on Flag Day were the poster guys for MAGA’s image of masculinity, then the pregnant women of Trump world are one half of their feminine counterparts,” Friedman wrote.
Ainsley Earhardt, co-host of “Fox & Friends,” said the wave of pregnancies show that “this White House has just championed family values.”
“There’s leading by example, I think, as the vice president explained back in January when he announced that Usha was expecting, and I know that that’s a lot of the heartbeat of the vice president is policies that are pro-family, that encourage, enhance and help families,” former White House staffer Jane Hampton Cook added during Monday’s show. “And so this is just part of that picture of just who the Vance’s really are.”
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles congratulated the Vances and said it is “such a pleasure to serve in an administration filled with growing families.”
“Every new child is a reminder of the hope, promise, and bright future we’re working to build,” Wiles said.
Leavitt congratulated the couple on the birth of their son. She said she “can’t wait for our babies to meet!”