JD Vance’s busy summer of travel with Usha and their kids sparks angry Democrat

It’s quite common for vice presidents to lament they can never escape the bubble of Washington, DC, but Vice President JD Vance has the opposite problem. 

After six months in office, it’s a surprise if he ever stays in Washington, DC for longer than a week. 

The vice president has already been to France, Germany, India, Greenland, and the United Kingdom as well as two trips to the Vatican for two different popes.

In the United States, he visited over a dozen different states to promote the administration’s agenda, promote small businesses, and meet with people who have suffered the effects of a disaster. 

The fundraising circuit takes him to some of the most elite locations in the country, as he is the chair of the Republican National Committee. 

Democrats have taken notice, accusing him of taking too much time on ‘vacation’ rather than remaining in Washington, DC. 

‘JD Vance has gone on vacation at least once a month since he took office,’ the Democratic National Committee War Room announced in a statement.

‘It’s clear Vance’s loyalties lie with the ultra-wealthy he’s been vacationing with — not with working Americans who are struggling under the Trump-Vance billionaire-first agenda,’ DNC Rapid Response Director Kendall Witmer said. 

Vance’s foreign travel has become more frequent, as the administration is presented with an unusual uptick in world events.

Within three weeks, Vance traveled to Italy twice, first to visit Pope Francis (who died the next day), then to visit the newly appointed pontiff Pope Leo XIV who was elected in June. 

In between his meetings at the Vatican, Vance took a flurry of meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

The ongoing war in Ukraine has also made the vice president’s meetings with European leaders paramount, wherever they cross paths. 

The Vance family took their August vacation in the United Kingdom in the Cotswolds, but the vice president had many official diplomatic duties as part of the trip. 

That prompted the Republican National Committee to fire back at the Democrats’ claims as false. 

‘The Democrats are shamelessly lying about Vice President Vance and the Trump administration’s highly successful record on the world stage,’ RNC spokeswoman Kiersten Pels told the Daily Mail. 

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes also criticized Vance, claiming the vice president and his family had taken ‘eight vacations in seven months,’ and complained of Vance’s ‘rank corruption,’ and ‘abusing the public trust.’

That came as a surprise to allies of Vance who were quick to step up to defend the vice president.

‘This is a contrived story from a Democrat Party that is searching for ways to attack a massively effective VP who has a young family that sometimes travels together, which is commendable. JD is a real person with a real life. The people attacking him need to get one of their own,’ Charlie Kirk, Founder and CEO of Turning Point USA told the Daily Mail.

Vance is also unique in that he is the father of three young children, the first vice president since former Vice President Al Gore to travel with children. 

The vice president chooses to bring his family with him on long foreign trips, which typically include an extraordinary number of meetings and a busy schedule. 

In February, Vance traveled to Paris and Munich for a summit on Artificial Intelligence and the Munich Security Conference.

That travel included two prominent speeches and meetings with eight different world leaders, including French President Emanuel Macron, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and Prime Minister Modi of India.

But the job still has it’s perks. 

In between meetings with world leaders and diplomatic niceties, the vice president’s team has scheduled special activities for the family.

While he was off the clock, Vance and his family visited Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He and his wife Usha made a more solemn visit to the Dachau concentration camp memorial in Germany.

A diplomatic trip to India warranted a visit to the Taj Mahal, as Prime Minster Narendra Modi lavished attention on the family, as Usha Vance and the children were celebrated for their Indian heritage.

That activity, Vance’s allies insist, is part of the job but also a sign that he is a good dad. 

‘It’s insane that the Democrat Party is attacking Vice President Vance for making time for his wife and kids. He’s the most effective Vice President in modern history, and he’s an attentive dad, and he deserves credit for both,’ Terry Schilling, President of pro-family American Principles Project told the Daily Mail. 

Despite the best-laid plans by staff, sometimes the demands of the job require Vance to miss time with the family.  

While in Rome, Vance did not join his wife and children to visit the Colosseum, even as tourists were outraged that it was closed for a portion of the day. 

He did, however, join the family for a private tour of the Sistine Chapel and attended Good Friday services at St. Peter’s Basilica and Mass at the historic Saint Paul Outside The Walls Basilica. 

The decision to take in cultural sites are usually encouraged by the leaders of their host countries, as the vice president’s advance team coordinate extra activities surrounding their visit. 

For example, when Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband visited Paris, she stopped by a cookware shop when she was in Paris in between Meetings with Macron and also stopped to tour a biomedical research institute, as a way to pay tribute to her mother who worked in a medical lab. 

Every foreign trip typically includes a visit from the vice president to a military base to meet the troops. 

Vance served beers to the troops in appreciation of their service, for example, during an April refueling stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. He has visited several military bases since. 

Details of Vance’s trip to the United Kingdom leaked early, as the vice president and his family spent several days in the Cotswolds as well as a time at a country estate in Scotland.

The eye-popping cost of the $10,000-a-week home in the Cotswolds and the $28,000-a-week home in Scotland sparked headlines, but the vice president fronted some of the costs.

‘The Vance family pays for their own accommodations when on personal travel,’ a source familiar with the vice president’s travel arrangements told the Daily Mail.

While the president was setting up diplomatic efforts to end the Russian war in Ukraine, Vance spent time meeting with Lammy, as well as Ukrainian, and European officials.

Vance was also on the phone with the White House for conversations related to Trump’s historic summit with European leaders to discuss the end to the war in Ukraine.

The vice president’s fundraising duties also made demands on his time. Despite being overseas, he attended an event in the UK for American ex-pats, raising $4 million for the RNC.

As the RNC finance chairman, Vance has a busy domestic fundraising schedule.

A three-hour trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming raised $2 million for the RNC, before the vice president left for another fundraiser for Big Sky, Montana. A fundraising trip to Nantucket raised $3 million.

Vance also visited Atlanta, Georgia, and Las Vegas, Nevada, and Nashville, Tennessee for fundraisers as well as San Diego, New York City, and Silicon Valley.

Vance’s wife Usha sometimes travels with him on fundraising trips, as she was spotted boarding a yacht with the vice president in Nantucket.

The vice president’s half-day trip to Rupurt Murdoch’s ranch in Montana in June, reportedly included a brief hike with Usha before Air Force Two made its way back to Washington, DC the same evening. 

Despite his much publicized international trips, the vice president has also spent a great deal of time traveling domestically, as part of his efforts to promote the administrations signature bill, in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin. 

The Vance family also mixed business and fun for their Independence Day holiday, as they visited Mt. Rushmore for fireworks commemorating the U.S.’s 249th birthday and went for a hike with the family. The trip also included a meeting between Vance and South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden.

A side trip to North Dakota for Independence Day also included a speech to promote the president’s signature legislation and a family visit to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library.

The vice president’s other domestic trips included visit to a hurricane disaster area in Damascus, Virginia, a trip to East Palestine, Ohio to check in on cleanup from the train wreck, a trip to the border in Texas, and manufacturing centers in Michigan and South Carolina.

Vance might be surprised that Democrats claimed his day-long trip to Greenland with Usha in March was considered a vacation, as they traveled to a remote Space Force base for a speech and a visit with some of the troops before boarding the plane for home.

At this point, the official Vance family vacations include a weekend ski trip to Vermont in March and a trip to Disneyland in California which fell on a Saturday. 

‘Sorry to all the people who were at Disneyland for the longer lines, but we had a very good time,’ Vance said afterward. 

Vance’s so-called ‘vacation’ in Ohio was the vice president choosing to go canoeing with his family on a Saturday, just minutes away from his home in Cincinnati. 

It was how the vice president wanted to celebrate his birthday, but it ended up making headlines.

What used to be a simple trip down the river turned out to be a fiasco, as Secret Service coordinated with local officials to temporarily raise the water levels in river to prevent security boats from getting grounded.

For the vice president, it was all part of the public circus that follows him wherever he and his family goes — very different from his life as a U.S. senator. 

Vance does not pretend, however, that he and the family do not enjoy the perks that come with the job, hinting that one day, he and his family may end up in more tropical locations.

‘Hopefully, we can find some excuse as vice president of the United States to go to Hawaii,’ Vance said in a podcast interview with Katie Miller. ‘Kamala Harris went to Hawaii, so we should be able to find some excuse to go to Hawaii.’