*The video shows previous reporting on Usha Vance.
(The Hill) — Usha Vance is opening up in her first wide-ranging interview since becoming second lady, saying she’s striving for normalcy in her new role.
“To me, the highest priority right now is to be actually a normal person,” Vance, a trial lawyer, told The Free Press in a profile published Monday.
“Obviously,” she said, “our lives are not normal, and it feels almost absurd to say that they are.”
“It’s a very strange life that we lead, where there are lots of people who have just imagined all sorts of narratives about us and what we think and what we do and why we do it and how much planning goes into it and all these sorts of things,” she told the publication, when asked what the media “does not understand” about her husband, Vice President JD Vance.
The mother of three described the political realm as an isolated place, saying it “can be a very lonely, lonely world not to share with someone.”
Vance, the country’s first Indian American and Hindu woman to hold the title of second lady, also reflected on her ethnicity compared to some of President Donald Trump’s “blonde” and “nine-inch heels”-sporting supporters.
“I’m laughing,” Vance said, “because it would be really hard for me to be blonde.”
“That color would look totally absurd,” she said.
“For what it’s worth, my reception into this world — and I’m not from a particularly wealthy background, not from a very fashion-oriented background personally or professionally — has been really positive,” Vance, 39, said.
“People don’t seem to care all that much what I look like.”
