fourth pregnancy USA second lady Usha Vance Attracted attention because of her husband JD Vance’s Current term. The vice president recently defended his wife after a New York Times article speculated on the political significance of her maternity wear — a suggestion that Usha has since publicly rejected.
J.D. Vance responded to the article with a joke, saying his wife could buy a $50 Old Navy coral maternity dress for just $8.75 and saying her budgeting skills make her qualified to be the next federal budget director.
“She spent $8.75 on a $50 dress. America: meet your next federal budget director!” Vance responded to the second lady’s post on social media platform X.
Also read me Usha Vance vs Pakistan’s Munir? As Iran deal hangs in the balance, Vance reveals his true favorites
Story time with the Second Lady
The controversy first came to attention on the second lady’s podcast “Storytime with the Second Lady,” in which special guests read accessible children’s stories with Usha and “inspired a lifelong love of reading,” according to the channel’s official synopsis.
Usha wore a figure-hugging old navy dress for the Father’s Day special, which featured her husband. Vanessa Friedman, fashion director of The New York Times, believed the outfit was a thoughtful political statement designed to humanize the vice president and advance the MAGA movement’s stance on feminism and fertility.
Also read me JD Vance says Watergate will be today’s ’12-hour news story’; claims ‘deep state’ toppled Nixon
Usha responded to the article with humor. “Now that we know the politics of my $8.75 coral Old Navy maternity dress, can’t wait to hear what the New York Times has to say about my elastic waistband pants and compression socks! In the meantime, enjoy my pregnancy fashion (or lack thereof) and tell a good story with your little ones at Storytime with the Second Lady,” she wrote.
She later shared a receipt for the dress to further emphasize her point.
The New York Times article titled “The Politics and Power of Pregnancy Images” compared Usha’s maternity clothes to those of two other important White House figures: the Secretary of State. Caroline Levitt and Katie MillerWife of Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Millerthe two happened to be pregnant at the same time as the second lady.
Friedman’s MAGA argument
Friedman began the article by stressing the significance of Vance’s pregnancy, noting that it was the first public pregnancy in a vice presidential family since Skyler Colfax’s wife, Ellen Colfax, in 1870.
Friedman writes: “It is undoubtedly a coincidence that three such prominent women in the MAGA movement became pregnant at nearly the same time. But for an administration that had such an intuitive and strategic understanding of the power of aesthetics that it established an unspoken dress code that men dress in the image of the president, it also became a persuasive mandate.”
She believes that women’s maternity clothing has become “a picture of the White House platform for family and childbirth” and may “provide an idealized image of womanhood and a literal image for the birthivist movement.”
Friedman then contrasted their approach with that of the spouses of previous political leaders, including Cherie Blair, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy, both of whom opted for looser silhouettes during their pregnancies. She describes the current trend as “a departure from the traditional wifely aesthetic.”
Leavitt recently returned from maternity leave after giving birth to her first child on May 1, while Miller welcomed the couple’s fourth child on June 3. Usha Vance is expected to give birth to her baby sometime in July.
