Vice President JD Vance is facing sharp criticism after he told a group of college students in Mississippi that he hopes his Hindu wife, second lady Usha Vance, will give up her own faith and become a Christian.
The vice president was speaking at the University of Mississippi at an event sponsored by Turning Point USA, the group founded by slain Christian conservative activist Charlie Kirk, when a questioner invoked his wife’s religious background.
Vance replied that his wife grew up in what was “not a particularly religious” Hindu family and said they had always had an open dialogue on religious matters when it comes to how they are raising their three children — two of whom attend a Christian school with all three being raised in the Christian faith.
After noting that Usha often attends church with him, he said he hopes she will someday be “moved” by the same things that brought him to convert to Catholicism as an adult.
“I honestly do wish that because I believe in the Christian gospel, and I hope eventually, my wife comes to see it the same way,” he said.
“If she doesn’t, then God says, everybody has free will, so that doesn’t cause a problem for me. That’s something you work out.”
Vance’s comments, which were broadcast on Fox News and online by Turning Point, struck a nerve with some users on X.
An Indian-American commentator named Deep Barot also weighed in, mocking Vance’s suggestion that his wife was once “agnostic” when she has admitted having been raised in the Hindu tradition.
“Usha Vance is Hindu not agnostic this is not very hard for you to follow. They even had a Vedic Hindu wedding and one of his kids name [sic] is Vivek,” he said.
Barot added that Vance was “the biggest hypocrite” for downplaying his wife’s background and would face problems in a potential 2028 presidential run as a result.
Another Indian commentator, Nirmalya Dutta, called Vance “a class A hypocrite” for the same reason and noted that the vice president had credited his wife’s faith with reinvigorating his interest in his own.
Transgender activist Ari Drennen, suggested that his remarks could lead to the end of his marriage.
“He’s going to be the first Vice President to get Divorced while in office,” she said.For her part, Usha Vance has stated that she has no intention to abandon her family’s faith in favor of her husband’s.
In an interview with conservative commentator Meghan McCain in June, Vance said she and the vice president had “a lot of conversations” about faith when he was considering whether to convert to Catholicism and noted that his decision came with “several important obligations, like to raise your child in the faith and all that.”
She said at the time that she was “not intending to convert or anything like that” and told McCain that she and her husband have given her children “each the choice” of experiencing both of their respective religious traditions.
“The kids know that I’m not Catholic, and they have plenty of access to the Hindu tradition from books that we give them, to things that we show them, to the recent trip to India, and some of the religious elements of that visit,” she said.
