Vice President JD Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, said the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last year played a role in how she and her husband thought about expanding their family.
The couple appeared on “CBS News Sunday Morning” to discuss Vance’s upcoming book, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith.” In the book, Vance writes about being with Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, on the day of his assassination in September. According to Vance, Erika told Usha “between sobs” that she “regretted having only two kids with Charlie.”
Vance wrote that he and Usha had already talked about the possibility of having another child. But after Kirk’s death, he said, “something changed” for both of them.
Usha said the conversation with Erika made the idea feel more immediate for her husband.
“I think it really heightened JD’s sense that he’d been talking about this for a while, this sense that there was this possibility of having another kid whom he could love as much as the three that we had,” Usha said.
She said Erika’s words stayed with them because they touched on something deeply personal: the question of regret and family.
“It really did crystallize for him, that sense that if you could have that other child, then you would have nothing to regret,” Usha said. “And if we couldn’t have that other child, then we were very happy with the children that we had. So it was very powerful what she said about her own family and certainly very moving to both of us.”
JD and Usha Vance announced in January that they were expecting their fourth child. In a statement posted on social media, the couple said the baby is a boy and is due in July.
The Vances are already parents to three children: Ewan, Vivek, and Mirabel.
During the interview, Usha made clear that Kirk’s death was not the sole reason they decided to have another child. Rather, she said it happened during a period when she and her husband were already seriously talking about whether their family might grow.
“I think I had already started to open my mind to the possibility,” she said. “I wouldn’t say this was for me in any way the decisive factor, but it came in the middle of a conversation that we were already having.”
Vance’s book is scheduled to be released on June 16. He has described it as a personal account of his return to faith, particularly his conversion to Catholicism.
In an interview with “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Vance said the book traces what he called his “long and winding road” back to belief in God. He said he felt he had “lost it” as a young man, but eventually found his way back.
The book also appears to connect Vance’s faith with his views on marriage, family, and grief. In discussing Kirk’s death and Erika Kirk’s reaction to it, Vance frames the moment as one that forced him to think more seriously about what matters in the face of loss.
