House Speaker Mike Johnson channeled his father's inner energy as he enthusiastically videotaped the Vice President J.D. VanceFor the first time in the Oval Office. The speaker not only celebrated the moment, but referenced Vance's background, saying his story could have happened “only in America.”
“As we gathered for our meeting at the White House yesterday, J.D. Vance mentioned to us that he had never visited the Oval Office before. I told him and President Trump that I had to capture this moment on video,” Johnson wrote in a post. On
Republican lawmakers meet with President Trump and Vice President Vance to push the agenda
Vance, from left, President Donald Trump, and Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, during the 60th Presidential Inauguration in Emancipation Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Alexander Drago/Pool via Reuters)
Vance's background took center stage in the campaign, with Gov. Tim Walz, a Minnesota Democrat, telling then-Vice President Kamala Harris a joke about no one from his small town going to Yale, where Vance earned a law degree.
“Now, I grew up in Butte, Nebraska, a town of 400 people,” Walz said during his remarks at the Democratic National Convention. “I had 24 kids in my high school class, and none of them went to Yale.”
The Trump campaign was quick to criticize Walz's comments on social media, calling them “strangely flexible.”
Vance, left, is sworn in as his wife, Osha Vance, looks on during the 60th Presidential Inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Monday, January 20, 2025. (Kevin LaMarque/Pool Photo via AP)
Who is J.D. Vance, Trump's running mate?
Before being chosen as Donald Trump's running mate, Vance served as an Ohio state senator after winning the seat in 2022. However, the current vice president entered the public eye in 2016 when he published his book “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Culture in Crisis“.” In the book, he details his difficult upbringing in Middletown, Ohio.
Surrounded by poverty, and grappling with his mother's drug addiction, Vance worked his way into a position that allowed him to make a difference.
In 2020, years after the memoirs were published, it was turned into a movie on Netflix, directed by Ron Howard and starring… Glenn Close and Amy Adams. “Hillbilly Elegy” faced heavy criticism, which both Close and Adams dismissed. More recently, while on “The View,” Close praised the vice president's “very generous family.”
Vance and Trump look on during a rally on Inauguration Day. (Reuters/Mike Segar)
Vance's mother, Beverly Aikins, has been sober for a decade. Aikins briefly addressed the crowd at Ohio's inauguration, held in Washington, D.C., on Sunday evening. She informed the audience that she had officially reached 10 years of sobriety that day and that the next day was her birthday, as well as her son's inauguration. Cincinnati.com reported.
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Vance returned to his hometown for a rally at Middletown High School, from which he graduated in 2003. The then-candidate told the crowd that the city had been “very good to me” and that he was “proud” to be from Middletown. .
