JD Vance and Wife Usha Vance Discuss Faith, Family, and New Book

Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance, opened their residence to CBS News' Robert Costa, offering a glimpse into their family life and the Vice President's spiritual journey. With three young children and a fourth on the way, their home is a busy hub, a stark contrast to the political intensity of Washington D.C.

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The President actually will bust my chops sometimes, 'cause he'll say, 'You have a nicer house than I do.'

The Vances discussed JD Vance's new book, "Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith," which chronicles his 2019 conversion to Catholicism. The book explores how this spiritual shift has influenced his personal life, political career, and marriage. Usha Vance shared her observation that while therapy might not work for everyone, it particularly didn't resonate with JD, who found more solace and direction in his faith.

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Therapy didn't work for you; church does.

Vance elaborated on his lifelong search for stability, a desire rooted in a childhood marked by a "revolving door" of family members and frequent moves. He explained his feeling of being "permanently terrified that things will unravel" if not "rooted" in something stable, a sentiment he found in organized religion.

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And it's not that therapy doesn't work for other people, but JD just doesn't have the right kind of trust in that process. He just didn't feel at home in it, really exploring some of the feelings that he had and trying to figure out how he wanted to be the person that he wanted to be for the rest of his life.

Drawing parallels to his bestselling 2016 book, "Hillbilly Elegy," which detailed his family's struggles, Vance's pursuit of order in his personal life is evident. In his political life, he has navigated both acclaim and criticism. He credits Usha Vance with providing a crucial, blunt feedback mechanism, helping him gauge the reception of his public statements.

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Yeah, I think that's very insightful. And, you know, I grew up in some ways a very nontraditional household, you know? A revolving door of people coming in, people coming out, raised by my grandparents at some points, raised by my parents at some points, my mom, my dad. So, there was a certain movement and chaos to my youth. And I do think that I was searching for something that, again, felt a little bit more rooted and felt a little bit more stable.