Washington DC - Former President Barack Obama used a podcast to slam Vice President JD Vance over the "hypocrisy" of his marriage to Usha while peddling aggressively anti-immigrant policies.
"At least one of our major parties has been captured by politics that is not that subtle about suggesting that 'we the people' means a certain kind of people," Obama told author Malcolm Gladwell during a podcast appearance.
He went on to suggest that Vance is a hypocrite for pushing divisive, anti-migrant policies and language while himself being married to the daughter of an immigrant.
"When you have the vice president – the current vice president – making a speech that is basically a blood-and-soil version of 'we the people,' that it matters who your parents were, how long they've been here," Obama said.
"Despite him being married to… a daughter of an immigrant himself, that echoes, then, ideas about who can be a citizen, who belongs, who gets to make decisions."
In response, Gladwell said that Vance and Usha's marriage is an example of how the US has moved "from malice to hypocrisy."
"Hypocrisy is progress," Obama said. "You feel guilty enough to either lie to yourself or others. And that is better than not even thinking about the idea that maybe you're doing something wrong."
Usha Vance was born in California, but her parents were both Telugu Indian immigrants who came to the US in the 1980s.
Under the Trump administration's birthright citizenship rules, which have met numerous legal hurdles, it was rumored that Usha may not have become a citizen when she was born in 1986. These claims were discredited in a Reuters fact check.