According to reports, it does not appear the tradition of the current vice president and spouse hosting the incoming second family will be taking place.
Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly declined to invite Vice President-elect JD Vance and his wife to a sit-down meeting or tour of the vice president’s official residence, One Observatory Circle.
According to a CBS News report, representatives for JD Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, reached out to the staff of Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff seeking details about child-proofing the home for their three young children. The news outlet reports that aides for the Navy, which operates the Naval base home, have since been in contact with the Vances. However, it does not appear the tradition of the current vice president and spouse hosting the incoming second family will be taking place.
The Washington, D.C., mansion has been the official home of every vice president since the 1970s. In 2016, then-Vice President Joe Biden and Second Lady Jill Biden notably welcomed former Vice President Mike Pence and Second Lady Karen Pence to the Naval Observatory for lunch after Pence and President Donald Trump won the election in 2016.
CBS reports sources close to Vice President Harris noted that the tradition was not extended to her when she and President Biden won the 2020 election. Harris and Emhoff also moved in at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and during political tension when Trump refused to concede the election and spread falsehoods about voter fraud. However, CBS reported that former aides to Pence pushed back against claims they did not offer Harris an invitation to the Naval Observatory. They say the invitation was offered “discreetly” because Trump refused to accommodate the incoming Biden-Harris administration.
Representatives for Harris told CBS the vice president had also been preoccupied with planning an overseas trip to Singapore, Bahrain, and Germany and on the California wildfires, which caused her to cancel her travels.
Though the Vances, Harris, and Emoff will not be having a meet-and-greet, which is often used as a photo-op to encourage the U.S. peaceful transition of power, Usha Vance reportedly spoke with Second Gentleman Emhoff for 40 minutes, and the vice president’s team is working to accommodate the Vance children’s needs.
It may not be surprising that Harris has decided to forgo inviting Vance to the vice president’s residence. The U.S. senator turned vice president-elect notably called Harris “trash.”
“In two days, we are going to take out the trash in Washington, D.C., and the trash’s name is Kamala Harris,” he said two days before last year’s election.
In August, Vance notably confronted Harris’ Air Force Two while coincidentally on the same tarmac in Wisconsin. “I figured I’d come by and, one, just get a good look at the plane because, hopefully, it’s going to be my plane in a few months,” said Vance, in addition to berating Harris for not answering questions from reporters. Some critics found the stunt to be an attempt to intimidate Harris and even sexist.
!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||[],g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(“has-featured-video”,”true”)})}();
More must-reads:
