House Speaker Johnson videotaped Vice President JD Vance’s first visit to the Oval Office
House Speaker Mike Johnson channeled his father’s inner energy as he excitedly filmed the vice president JD VanceFirst time in the Oval Office. The speaker not only celebrated the moment, but highlighted Vance’s background, saying his story could have happened “only in America.”
“As we gathered for our meeting at the White House yesterday, JD Vance mentioned to us that he had never visited the Oval Office before. I told him and President Trump that I HAD to capture the moment on video,” Johnson wrote in a post on X. “Just in America a hard-working young man from Appalachia can rise from his humble circumstances and enter the Oval for the first time as VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. What a country!”
REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS MEET WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP AND VICE PRESIDENT VANCE TO ADVANCE AGENDA
Vance, from left, President Donald Trump and Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, during the 60th presidential inauguration in Emancipation Hall of the US Capitol in Washington, DC (ALEXANDER DRAGO/Pool via REUTERS)
Vance’s background took center stage in the campaign as then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., joked that no one from his small town went to Yale, where Vance earned his law degree.
“Now I grew up in Butte, Nebraska, a town of 400 people. I had 24 kids in my high school class, and none of them went to Yale,” Walz said during his speech at the Democratic National Convention.
The Trump campaign quickly called out Walz’s statements on social media, calling them a “weird flex.”
Vance, left, takes the oath of office as his wife Usha Vance looks on during the 60th presidential inauguration in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (Kevin Lamarque/Pool Photo via AP)
WHO IS TRUMP’S OPPONENT JD VANCE?
Before being selected as President Donald Trump’s running mate, Vance served as a senator from Ohio after winning the seat in 2022. However, the current vice president went public in 2016 when he published his book, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of Family and Culture in Crisis.” In the book, he describes his challenging upbringing in Middletown, Ohio.
Surrounded by poverty and struggling with his mother’s drug addiction, Vance fought for change.
In 2020, years after the memoir was published, it was turned into a Netflix film directed by and starring Ron Howard Glenn Close and Amy Adams. “Hillbilly Elegy” faced heavy criticism, which both Close and Adams dismissed. Recently, on “The View,” Close praised the vice president’s “very generous family.”
Vance and Trump look at each other during an inauguration day rally. (REUTERS/Mike Segar)
Vance’s mother, Beverly Aikins, has been sober for a decade. Aikins briefly addressed the crowd at the Ohio Inaugural Ball, which was held in Washington, DC on Sunday night. She informed the crowd that on that day she had officially completed 10 years of sobriety, and that the next day was her birthday, as well as the inauguration of her son, Cincinnati.com reported.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
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 “so good to me” and that he was “proud” to be from Middletown.
