Usha Vance has always been a mystery to those around her. Perhaps that explains why Usha has been the subject of so many scandalous rumors in the short time she’s been in the spotlight. The impression she made on friends wasn’t always favorable. In fact, some classmates have painted a seriously shady picture of what the wife of U.S. Vice President JD Vance was like in her youth. If she comes off as cold and calculating to you, you aren’t alone. Many of her former classmates thought so, too.
Since rising to the post of second lady, Usha has baffled observers, who have tried to make sense of the successful Indian-American lawyer’s motivations and true beliefs. However, Usha has a shady side that is out in the open: she has unabashedly switched political allegiances shortly before her husband ran for the U.S. Senate, having been a registered Democrat until 2014. And in 2016, Usha reportedly supported Hillary Clinton.
In fact, JD himself was against Donald Trump that election cycle. “I think there’s a chance, if I feel like Trump has a really good chance of winning, that I might have to hold my nose and vote for Hillary Clinton,” he told NPR’s Terry Gross in 2016. Usha and JD’s marriage might be a bit strange, but they at least have that in common. If the anecdotes from friends and acquaintances of her past are to be believed, Usha has always preferred to keep her cards close to her chest.
Former classmate thinks Usha Vance might be a ‘sociopath’
Usha Vance’s political flip-flopping suggests she puts her ambitions above everything else. That shady tendency was present early on in her career and didn’t go unnoticed. “She didn’t seem to have strong emotions,” one former friend who went to Yale Law School with Usha told The Cut in 2024. “It didn’t seem like things got to her that much, and she was never very vulnerable.” Stopping a moment to reflect, the former class made a disquieting observation: “I kind of wonder if she’s a sociopath.”
That side of hers can also be seen in her reluctance to discuss politics, even though she’s in politics. “She was more tight-lipped, at least in my experience, with her political views,” fellow 2013 graduate Marvin Lim told Business Insider in 2024. He was far from the only one who struggled to grasp what Usha believed in. “I don’t remember ever having a political conversation with Usha,” Elliot Forhan said. “She just didn’t really show her cards with respect to the political stuff.”
Usha’s self-serving side was also apparent to those who knew her in the past when she became an important player in the MAGA world, considering that she had previously shown disdain for Donald Trump. “She was generally appalled by Trump, from the moment of his first election. It was surreal to see her sitting next to him last night,” a former friend told The Washington Post after the 2024 Republican National Convention, where she introduced JD Vance.
