Vice President JD Vance says he’s raising his children within the Christian faith, despite being a part of a mixed-faith family.
The 41-year-old clashed with a student over immigration policy and non secular identity during a Turning Point USA event on the University of Mississippi on Wednesday, where he paid tribute to conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Speaking alongside widow Erika Kirk, the brand new head of Turning Point USA, Vance addressed hundreds in an arena, fielding questions within the mold of Kirk’s trademark “Prove Me Wrong” sessions. The Ole Miss stop was Erika Kirk’s only appearance on the tour, which has recently featured Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson at other campuses.
Kirk, Turning Point USA’s founder, was shot and killed in September at Utah Valley University.
Vance set a welcoming tone early by encouraging the audience to take time with their questions.
“Please do not be nervous if it’s essential to work through a matter. Think through it, speak it,” Vance said. “We’re all here to have a pleasant conversation, and we’re all supportive of it.”
The crowd later chanted “48” in reference to a possible 2028 presidential bid.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, ladies and gentlemen,” Vance replied.
The questions touched on a variety of topics, including President Donald Trump’s Israel policy and donor Miriam Adelson, mandating Christianity in schools, and bridging divides with Democrats — where Vance noted agreement on antitrust issues.
Perhaps the event’s most heated moment got here when a student who identified herself as a non-Christian confronted Vance on what she called a betrayed “dream” for legal immigrants who invested their lives and money only to face restrictive policies. She also challenged the role of Christianity in the case of expressing one’s love for America.
“I’m not even Christian and I’m here standing to support,” she said. “Why are we making Christianity one in every of the main things that you could have to have in common?”
Vance pushed back on the scholar’s framing of the immigration issue, which the VP said was more about honoring legal pathways but rejecting unlimited future inflows.
“I can imagine that we should always have lower immigration levels. But if the United States passed a law and made a promise to any person, the United States, in fact, has to honor that promise,” he said. “I’m talking about individuals who got here in in violation of the laws. … And my job as vp shouldn’t be to look out for the interest of the entire world. It’s to look out for the people of the United States.”
After his response drew thunderous applause, Vance argued that past immigration policy doesn’t necessarily inform what future changes may appear to be.
“Just because one person or 10 people or 100 people got here in legally … does that mean that we’re thereby committed to let in one million or 10 million or 100 million people a 12 months in the long run?” he asked. “No.”
Referring back to the scholar’s query about his interfaith household, Vance said his wife, Usha, who was born in California to Telugu Indian immigrant parents, “didn’t grow up Christian.”
“I feel it’s fair to say that she grew up in a Hindu family, but not a very religious family in either direction,” Vance added. “In fact, once I met my wife, we were each, I’d have considered myself an agnostic or an atheist, and that is what I feel she would have considered herself as well.”
Vance shared how he and the second lady have decided to make the Christian faith the muse of their kids’ upbringing.
“We’ve decided to boost our children Christian,” he explained. “Our two oldest kids who go to high school, they go to a Christian school. Our 8-year-old did his first communion a couple of 12 months ago. That’s the way in which that we now have come to our arrangement.”
While acknowledging that navigating a mixed-faith marriage requires commitment, communication and beauty, Vance said his marriage isn’t any different than that of his friends who’re in Protestant and Catholic marriages and even, as he put it, “atheist and Christian marriages,” saying it requires communication.
“The only advice I may give is, you only got to discuss with the individual that God has put you with and you have got to make those decisions as a family unit,” he said, adding that on most Sundays, Usha will join him and the remaining of the family at church — even when she’s not yet a Christian.
“Do I hope eventually that she is in some way moved by the identical thing that I used to be moved by in church? Yeah, I truthfully do wish that, because I think within the Christian Gospel and I hope eventually my wife involves see it the identical way,” said Vance. “But if she doesn’t, then God says everybody has free will and so that does not cause an issue for me.”
It’s not the primary time Vance has publicly spoken about his faith. During the 2024 campaign, then-Sen. Vance shared how he went from being an atheist law student to a devout Christian.
Vance, who penned the 2016 bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, was primarily raised by his grandmother, who, while being a devout Christian who usually prayed and browse the Bible, attended church services a couple of times a month.
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