How Does Usha Vance Sleep At Night?
By Romen Basu Borsellino | 08 Oct, 2025

An investigation into a question that my fellow Indians have been asking a lot lately



Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance

“How does Usha Vance sleep at night?”

It’s a question that I frequently hear from my fellow Indian Americans.

I’m, frankly, not surprised by it. The Second Lady of the United States is both the first Indian and Asian American to hold the position. 

And we Indians, after all, care deeply about health and wellness.  For centuries, we have practiced the ayurveda, which regards sleep as a fundamental pillar of health.

Not to mention yoga, which of course promotes mental well-being as well.  

Usha Vance, the daughter of Indian immigrants who came to the United States from Chennai in the 70’s before settling in San Diego, has certainly had a whirlwind few years that must have been tiring.

From moving between New Haven, DC, Ohio and elsewhere, not to mention her political shift from Registered Democrat to Second Lady in one of the most staunchly conservative Presidential administrations in our nation’s history, it’s anyone’s question how Mr.s Vance sleeps at night. 

Let’s explore. 

The Vice President's residence at One Observatory Circle

Location

While the President and First lady of course live in the White House, the Vice President and Second lady — or Second Gentleman in the case of Kamala Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff — occupy One Observatory Circle on the Grounds of the US Naval Observatory. 

The Naval Observatory is in Northwest DC, which is arguably a prime place to get some shuteye.  It's at least an hour walk from the White House which means that the Second Lady is well-insulated from the constant shouts of protestors begging the administration to stop ripping children away from their parents who, like Usha’s and mine for that matter, did not happen to be born in the US.

That said, now that the Administration has deployed the National guard across DC, it is possible that the screams of civilians being tased, pepper sprayed, and slammed to the ground could theoretically be heard from any part of the city.  So for the sake of Mrs. Vance’s slumber, one can only hope that the residence has double or even triple-paned windows. Or that she at least has access to ear plugs or melatonin.

The house contains 33 rooms and consists of a first floor, second floor, third floor, basement and attic, with the main bedroom on the second floor, which we can safely assume is where she sleeps. 

Second floors are typically prime sleeping locations, in contrast to first floors which are closer to street level and therefore noisier and also typically used for social engagements. 

If, for example, Vice President JD Vance is hosting a late night social gathering with, say,  bigoted conspiracy theorists Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Laura Loomer, both of whom he is friendly with, Mrs. Vance can retire to bed upstairs without noise being an issue. 

Although it’s worth noting there’s no evidence that the Second Lady would sit out such a meeting as she has never publicly denounced any of the controversial statements made by either.

There’s an additional bedroom on the second floor beyond the main suite.  While I might have initially been inclined to think that an extra room would be perfect for ensuring a good night’s sleep in the event of a fight that forces them into separate beds — a tale as old as time for any married couple — I have come to the conclusion that that would be unnecessary.

Earlier this year, JD Vance publicly rushed to the defense of a White House staffer who had tweeted “Normalized Indian hate” and “I was racist before it was cool.” 

I perhaps naively assumed that Mrs. Vance might publicly break from her husband’s blase attitude toward the remarks — which may very well put the safety of her own half-Indian children at risk — but now believe that if that incident didn't cause a fight between the two, there’s practically no scenario in which one would be expelled from the bedroom to “the dog house.”

Plus, even in such an event, the VP would likely opt for the couch over the guest bedroom. 

Travel

While the Vice President’s residence seems to provide more than adequate sleeping accommodations for the Second Lady, a big part of the job is of course travel, which includes sleeping outside the home, sometimes in places that may be less predictable.

It’s customary for the VP and Second Lady to fly on “Air Force Two,” which is the military call signal for a specially-designed Boeing-747. The plane includes seating for around 50 people, a conference room, a galley for staff, and yes, sleeping quarters.

Such sleeping accommodations may have been taken full advantage of during the Second Lady’s trip to Greenland, an excursion which, as originally conceived, was not received well by Greenland.

Despite Mrs. Vance’s claims that it was merely a cultural exchange, the weeks of leadup, marked by The President and VP’s threats to purchase the nation, gave the trip a much deeper meaning.

“We are now at a point where it can no longer be described as an innocent visit from a politician’s spouse,” said Greenland’s Prime Minister, putting to rest the idea that Mrs. Vance was acting as anything less than a diplomatic envoy of the United States. 

Ultimately, after many local establishments refused to host Mrs. Vance, the trip as planned was cancelled and instead became a visit to the US military’s Pituffik Space Base in Greenland, which both she and her husband participated in.

Hopefully the bed on Air Force Two was a full or queen size. The three hour time difference likely took its toll on the Second Lady’s sleep schedule as well. 

Pre-Second Lady

The quality of Mrs. Vance’s slumber is also relative. 

While she certainly keeps a busy schedule when it comes to providing either tacit or explicit support for the Trump-Vance administration’s ultra conservative agenda, it’s unlikely that there was a time in her life when she was not running on short sleep.

During the 2024 presidential campaign, for example, she was viewed as her husband’s top adviser and was reportedly heavily involved in helping him prepare for his debate against Kamala Harris’s running mate Tim Walz.

The past few years have surely brought their share of mental taxation as well, particularly when Mrs. Vance went from allegedly denouncing Trump’s role in the January 6, 2021 insurrection to doing more than most on the planet to help him win a second term in 2024.

While some may view Mrs. Vance’s relatively low public profile as a sign that she may not agree with her husband, those who know her best like family friend and political consultant Jai Chabria, have confirmed that “There is no daylight between [the Vances] on the politics of the day.”

And then there is the sheer exhaustion of raising kids throughout all of this. Mrs. Vance is reportedly a devoted mother who is heavily involved in the lives of her children. 

For all of the times that JD Vance has made comments disparaging “childless cat ladies” or “miserable and unhappy” women who invest too much time in their careers, Mrs. Vance seems to have managed to juggle both work and motherhood without publicly disagreeing with his comments once. 

And looking back even further, she was surely burning the candle at both ends even before raising children. It’s hard to imagine that she was well-rested during her time clerking for US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, during which time Roberts authored the majority opinion that upheld Trump’s infamous Muslim ban .

The Verdict

I can only imagine that when Indians ask “How does Usha Vance sleep at night?,” they are simply expressing the same amount of love and concern for the Second Lady that she has repeatedly shown for them. 

I can only imagine that, despite all odds, she sleeps just fine.  After all, it seems like she detests wokeness.