Vice President JD Vance says he and his wife, Usha, have not settled on a name for their fourth child, a baby boy due in July who will be the first born to a sitting vice president in modern American history.
The 41-year-old vice president shared the update in a telephone interview with USA TODAY tied to the release of his forthcoming memoir, "Communion," which hits shelves June 16.
It is a small, warm story in a political season that rarely produces them. And it offers a window into a young family navigating public life while doing what families have always done, arguing over what to call the new kid.
Vance told USA TODAY that he and Usha, 40, approach baby-naming the same way every time, by not deciding until the last possible moment.
"Usha and I have very different perspectives on what to name kids, and so we're always kind of debating names as we go into the delivery room and then once we see the baby, that's usually when we decide."
He added, with characteristic directness: "So no baby name yet. We know it's a boy, that's all we know, and I'm sure we'll name the child by the time we have to put a name on a birth certificate, just like we always do."
The couple already has three children, Ewan, 9; Vivek, 6; and Mirabel, 4. Each name reflects the family's blended heritage. Whatever the fourth child is called, it will carry a bit of history with it. No vice president in the modern era has welcomed a newborn while in office.
The pregnancy was not always a foregone conclusion. Last summer, Usha Vance told conservative podcast host Meghan McCain that she did not want more children, though she left the door open with a telling qualifier: "Never say never."
In his memoir, Vance wrote that the shift in Usha's thinking came after a painful loss. An excerpt published in the Wall Street Journal described years of asking his wife for a fourth child, only to be told she was done, especially given the scrutiny that came with public service.
"For years I had asked Usha to have another baby, and for years she had told me she was done, especially now that public service had elevated us into the national spotlight."
Then came the death of Charlie Kirk, the young conservative activist whom Vance described as a friend. Kirk died last September following what the article described as an assassination. Vance wrote that something changed for Usha after they buried Kirk.
"But something changed for Usha, and not long after we buried my friend, she became pregnant with our fourth child, a boy."
The couple announced the pregnancy in January.
With the baby due next month, Vance told NBC News he plans to bring his three older children to work this summer while Usha steps out of the public eye to bond with the newborn. It is a logistical arrangement most working parents would recognize, minus the Secret Service detail and the Oval Office down the hall.
Vance said the White House has been welcoming. His kids, he noted, enjoy visiting because they get to eat junk food and watch television there. No member of the Cabinet has volunteered to babysit, he acknowledged, but nobody seems to mind when the children tag along.
"Nobody's offered to babysit, but it's funny, nobody minds when the kids are around, either. Everybody's very welcoming."
He also noted the practical upside of his position with a grin.
"Obviously when you're the vice president, the only person who can really get mad at you is the president, and so we'll definitely use that privilege quite a bit over the summer, when we can bring the kids into the White House with me."
A few weeks ago, Vance said, he brought one of the children with him to work when Usha was not feeling well, a preview of what the summer routine may look like.
"Communion" arrives June 16, and the timing is no accident. The book covers fatherhood, friendship, loss, and the private life behind the public office. The Kirk passage and the pregnancy revelation sit at the emotional center of the memoir, linking grief to renewal in a way that will resonate with readers who understand both.
The Vances are young by the standards of recent vice-presidential families. At 41 and 40, they are raising small children in the middle of a term that demands constant public attention. That they are still debating baby names with weeks to go is less a political story than a human one, the kind of detail that reminds voters that the people in these offices still have kitchen-table arguments about the same things everyone else does.
The baby boy, whoever he turns out to be, will arrive in July into a family that has learned to make its biggest decisions at the last minute, in the delivery room, together.
In Washington, that kind of patience is rarer than it should be.
