Washington, DC: JD Vance, James David Vance, took the oath of office as the 50th Vice President of the United States at a private inauguration ceremony on Monday, January 20, 2025. The event took place at the Rotunda of the US Capitol in Washington DC.

Before his family, President Donald Trump, and various officials, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who has Second Lady Usha Vance on his team, administered the oath for Vance as vice president.

During the oath-taking, Vance rested his hand on a Bible that was his great-grandmother's, which he received from his “Mamaw” when he departed for the Marines in 2003. He pledged to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Who Is JD Vance?

On Wednesday, JD Vance, 39, is scheduled to give a speech at the Republican National Convention, which is currently being held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Vance was up in Middletown, a tiny Ohio town, and after graduating from high school, he joined the US Marines. His assignment was to serve as a combat journalist and public relations officer in Iraq.

He earned a bachelor's degree in political science and philosophy from Ohio State University after serving in the armed forces. He continued his legal education at Yale Law School, one of the most esteemed legal institutions, serving as the Yale Law Journal's editor.

Vance is married to Usha Chilukuri, an Indian-origin lawyer that he met while attending Yale. Three kids are raised by the couple. While her spouse is Catholic, Chilukuri is a Hindu.

After graduating from Yale Law in 2013, he worked as a venture capitalist for a short while before moving to San Francisco. Notably, he worked at PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel’s Mithril Capital.

Following the publication of his best-selling book, Hillbilly Elegy, in 2016, Vance became well-known. Many saw Vance's autobiographical Hillbilly Elegy, published in the year Trump stormed to power for the first time, as a window into rural, often-forgotten America that fueled Trump's ascent.

"A compassionate, discerning sociological analysis of the white underclass that has helped drive the politics of rebellion, particularly the ascent of Donald J. Trump," was how The New York Times described Vance's book in a review. In 2020, a full-length movie based on the book was released.

Previous Trump Critic

Vance was adamantly opposed to Trump in 2016. In October 2016, he declared to talk show host Charlie Rose, "I am a Never Trump guy." In July 2016, Vance penned an opinion piece for The Atlantic titled, "Trump is cultural hero... Trump's promises are the needle in America's collective vein." He temporarily lifts some people's spirits. However, he cannot cure their problems, and they will eventually recognise this.

"I swing back and forth between thinking that Trump is America's Hitler or that he is a cynical asshole like [Richard] Nixon who would not be that horrible (and might even prove beneficial)," Vance wrote in a 2016 private Facebook conversation to a friend.

‘Never A Trump Guy’ To Running Mate To Vice President

But Vance's views on Trump evolved over time. According to reports, he supported Trump in 2020 and used his support to win his first senatorial election in 2022.

Following his appointment as Trump's running mate, The New York Times stated that Vance had "described his ideological swings as a result of a double intellectual awakening: [For Vance] It turned out that Donald Trump was not as horrible as Vance had feared and that American liberals were far worse."

"I allowed myself to focus so much on the stylistic part of Trump that I entirely disregarded how he was proposing something extremely different on foreign policy, on trade, and on immigration," Vance said in a June interview with The New York Times.

JD Vance Becomes 50th Vice President Of USA

In a significant event, JD Vance took the oath of office as the 50th President of the United States at the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington DC. JD Vance was accompanied by his wife Usha Vance and their daughter. US Chief Justice John Roberts gave the oath of office to the 40-year-old JD Vance, who became the third youngest Vice President in US history.