Donald Trump joined Usha Vance for a children’s book reading, lavishing praise on the vice president’s wife.
Trump, 80, appeared on Storytime with the Second Lady, where he read—or rather talked through the pictures in—Presidents Play! by Jonathan Pliska, a children’s book about how U.S. presidents unwind with games and outdoor activities.
“I’m doing this for a great second lady,” Trump said toward the end of the storytime podcast, adding that the 40-year-old Vance has “been so popular around the White House.”
“Everybody loves you, it’s a great honor,” he told Vance, who nodded along and returned the compliment, saying it was a great honor to have him read to the children watching.
The president has reportedly been far less cordial toward the second lady’s husband, JD Vance, 41, with The New York Times reporting in May that he had privately complained to allies about a series of moves by his vice president that, in his view, could make him a “disaster” as a potential MAGA successor in 2028.
Trump is said to have compared the vice president’s performance to his own in private discussions, suggesting the former Ohio senator has struggled to secure major political wins without his backing. He also reportedly criticized the number of vacations JD Vance has taken.
According to friends of the second lady who spoke with The Washington Post, Vance—who met her husband when they studied at Yale Law School—has in the past found some of the president’s actions, including Trump’s alleged inciting of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, “deeply disturbing.”
“She was generally appalled by Trump, from the moment of his first election,” Vance’s friend told The Post.
Still, the second lady, who has largely kept a low profile during her husband’s time in the White House, focusing instead on promoting childhood literacy and youth arts, has maintained a friendly demeanor toward the president since the beginning of his second term.
She even appeared at the sparsely attended Great American State Fair this week, where she hosted a bookmark contest as the MAGA-fied event ran into a string of setbacks, with nearly every musical artist pulling out, electrical outages melting the ice cream, and generator issues briefly shutting down the Ferris wheel.
During Trump’s appearance on the podcast, Vance smiled as the president delivered a string of awkward remarks about former presidents featured in the children’s book, including calling John F. Kennedy the “second most good-looking president” after himself and taking a swipe at Barack Obama’s basketball skills, saying he “doubts” he is any good.
Trump’s “special” appearance on the podcast came across as more openly affectionate than when the second lady previously invited her husband on the show, an episode that drew online attention when the vice president awkwardly placed a hand on his pregnant wife’s knee.
The Daily Beast’s political newsletter, The Swamp, has reported that some of Vance’s previous guests have not always aligned neatly with the Trump administration’s broader agenda.
In one episode, for example, Vance’s mother, microbiologist Lakshmi Chilukuri, reads How the Camel Got His Hump. When the reading concludes, Vance asks her mother if she believes the story of how the camel got his hump is accurate.
“Well,” the microbiologist says, “There’s a whole science called evolution that tells you how animals develop the way they did.”
Views within the Trump administration on evolution vary, with some officials openly holding creationist views. Trump has generally avoided taking a clear position, neither endorsing nor rejecting the scientific consensus.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
