Vance Defends Comments on His Wife's Faith

Second lady Usha Vance, who is Hindu, has said publicly that she doesn't plan to convert to Christianity. But her husband told a Turning Point USA event in Mississippi this week that he has hope that she'll decide to share his Catholic faith. "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," Vance said, the New York Times reports. Usha Vance hasn't said anything publicly about his comments, but other people have—including members of the South Asian and Hindu communities who accused the vice president of disrespecting his wife's beliefs and implying that Hinduism is less valid than Christianity.

The situation began when an audience member suggested there's a religious prerequisite for acceptance in Charlie Kirk's organization. "Why are we making Christianity one of the major things that you have to have in common to be one of you guys? To show that I love America just as much as you do?" the person asked the vice president, per the Guardian, pointing out that Vance's wife isn't Christian and they're raising their children in an interfaith marriage. In his answer, Vance said Usha grew up in "not a particularly religious family," though she has said it was. He said when they met, they thought of themselves as agnostic or atheist. If his wife doesn't become Christian, he said, "God says that everybody has free will, so that doesn't cause a problem with me. That's something that you work out with your friends, your family, the person you most love."

Suhag Shukla, director of the Hindu American Foundation, described the answer as "basically saying that my wife, this aspect of her is just not enough" and noted the broader anxieties among immigrants and non-Christians in the face of the Trump administration's policies and rhetoric. "This just added kind of fuel to those fears," Shukla said. Vance defended himself on X, attributing some of the backlash to "anti-Christian bigotry." At the same time, the vice president repeated his hope. "She is not a Christian and has no plans to convert, but like many people in an interfaith marriage—or any interfaith relationship—I hope she may one day see things as I do," he wrote.