Second Lady Usha Vance, a former Supreme Court clerk, told ABC News that federal judges and Supreme Court justices deserve to be treated with basic respect, a message aimed squarely at a political culture that has turned the judiciary into a punching bag for both parties but increasingly for the left's most aggressive voices.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis, Vance spoke about the personal toll of public life, the way she talks to her children about political hostility, and her hope that Americans can disagree without demonizing the men and women who sit on the bench.
The interview lands at a moment when the Supreme Court faces sustained pressure from multiple directions. Chief Justice John Roberts warned in March at Rice University that "personally directed hostility" toward the Court was dangerous and had to stop. An October 2025 Gallup poll found that large majorities of Americans believe both parties have pushed inflammatory rhetoric too far, though the numbers tell a lopsided story about which side has escalated faster.
Usha Vance is not just the vice president's wife weighing in on abstract civics. She clerked for Chief Justice Roberts and for Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he served on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. She knows the institution from the inside.
When Davis asked whether she agreed with Roberts that personal attacks on judges have gone too far, Vance did not hedge.
"I have a lot of respect for the justices. I think that they have a hard and challenging job being in the public eye, just like a lot of other people in Congress, in the media, in the executive branch. So, I do want people to treat them with respect, I think that there has been a lot of personalization of feelings towards judges and the courts across the country that probably didn't exist, you know, 150 years ago when they were less in the public eye."
That observation, that the judiciary has been dragged into a kind of celebrity-culture hostility it was never designed to absorb, is worth sitting with. For most of American history, the average citizen could not name a single Supreme Court justice. Today, justices face protests at their homes, threats against their families, and organized campaigns to delegitimize rulings before the ink dries.
Vance went further, connecting the rhetoric directly to real-world danger.
"So, I'm hopeful that people will continue to treat them with the sense of humanity and you know, without the kind of anger that's led to some attacks on judges."
The reference needs no footnote. Americans remember the armed man arrested outside Justice Kavanaugh's home in 2022. They remember the sustained campaign of intimidation against justices who joined the Dobbs decision. The left's institutional machinery, from Senate Democrats to cable news to activist groups, spent years treating the Court's conservative majority as illegitimate. Vance's plea for basic decency is not a neutral statement. It is a corrective aimed at a political movement that has made judicial intimidation a strategy.
The ABC News report cited an October 2025 Gallup poll that found 69 percent of Americans said Republicans had gone too far in using inflammatory language to attack political rivals. That figure was up 16 percentage points from 2011. Meanwhile, 60 percent said the Democratic Party had gone too far, nine points higher than 14 years earlier.
The media framing of those numbers tends to emphasize the Republican figure. But the trend line matters more than any single snapshot. Both parties have escalated. And the specific question of judicial intimidation, the subject Vance addressed, has been overwhelmingly a project of the left. Democrats have openly discussed expanding the Supreme Court if they reclaim Congress, a proposal designed not to improve the judiciary but to neutralize rulings they dislike.
When asked about the tone of political rhetoric more broadly, Vance offered a measured answer rather than a partisan broadside.
"I think the question is how it's deployed."
That single sentence carries more intellectual honesty than most of what passes for commentary on cable news. Speech is not the problem. The weaponization of speech, aimed at destroying institutional legitimacy when rulings go the wrong way, is the problem.
The interview also touched on how Usha and JD Vance navigate political hostility with their young children. The second lady described a household that emphasizes action over grievance.
"What we focus on is what they can do. So, what's happening in their community? How can they be helpful around their community, their classmates, their school? Where can they volunteer? What can they do to make their local society better?"
She acknowledged that the children encounter hostility firsthand, protesters on the street, obscene gestures directed at the vice presidential motorcade. Rather than shielding them from every ugly moment, she and JD Vance talk through it in terms of behavior and personal responsibility.
"And then we talk about the things that we see. Maybe we encounter protesters on the street. Maybe we see someone flick off a motorcade or something like that. And we talk about it in terms of behavior. What would you do? What do you think the right thing for you to do would be if you were, if you're disagreeing with someone, if you were passing them on the street."
It is a window into a family trying to model decency under conditions that would test anyone. The media scrutiny the Vances face extends well beyond policy disagreements into personal attacks that would be considered unacceptable if aimed at a Democratic second family.
Vance also spoke about the evening of the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting. She was at home while Vice President JD Vance was on stage with President Trump before being whisked away by the Secret Service. She told Davis she moved quickly to talk to her children before they heard about it elsewhere.
"I didn't want my kids to hear about it on the playground. I did talk to them a little bit about it, but I tried to do it in pretty age-appropriate terms -- just say there was something that happened, but everyone was safe, the Secret Service was there. Daddy came home just as planned, you'll see him in the morning, that sort of thing."
The fact that a second lady has to plan how to explain a shooting at a Washington press dinner to her small children tells you something about where American political life stands. The Vance family has drawn media attention for everything from restaurant tips to commemorative coins, but the real story is a young family navigating genuine danger with composure.
The interview took place against the backdrop of recent clashes between President Trump and the judiciary. A judge, nominated by President Obama, ruled that Trump could not add his name to the Kennedy Center or shut it down for a lengthy renovation project without congressional approval. Trump criticized the ruling, suggesting it was politically motivated and arguing that millions of dollars had been wasted on scheduled repairs.
Separately, the Supreme Court struck down Trump's authority to implement emergency tariffs. Trump accused Chief Justice Roberts and others on the Court of being "disloyal" and "unpatriotic" after that decision.
Those clashes provide the immediate context for Vance's remarks. She did not directly address Trump's specific criticisms of the Court. Instead, she offered a broader principle: judges are human beings doing a difficult job, and the personalization of anger toward them corrodes the system. That framing applies to anyone who crosses the line, regardless of party. But the sustained, organized campaign to delegitimize the Court has come primarily from the left, from court-packing proposals to leaked draft opinions to protests outside justices' homes.
The political jockeying around future Supreme Court nominations only intensifies the pressure on sitting justices, turning every case into a proxy battle for the next vacancy.
When asked what surprised her most about President Trump, Vance offered a personal observation rather than a political one.
"He has a really good sense of humor and has a sort of gentleness towards his children, towards other people's families and children. It shows a lot of caring about what they're going through and what is happening in their lives."
On the question of JD Vance's political future, he is widely viewed as a leading figure in the broader MAGA movement, the second lady was characteristically understated.
"I am not a particularly politically ambitious person; I would like to see him happy. I would like to see him making contributions that matter and whatever form that takes is a form that I'll be supportive of."
It was a deft answer that neither fueled nor shut down speculation. Vance also mentioned she is rolling out her annual summer reading challenge for its second year, aimed at children in grades K through 8, a project that draws far less media attention than the political controversies but arguably says more about her priorities.
Usha Vance's call for respect toward the judiciary is not a radical proposition. It is, or should be, a baseline expectation in a constitutional republic. The fact that it qualifies as news tells you how far the baseline has eroded.
The internal tensions within the Court itself are real and worth covering. But there is a difference between vigorous legal disagreement and the kind of personalized hostility that Chief Justice Roberts warned about at Rice University, the kind that puts judges and their families in physical danger.
Vance, who knows the Court from the inside, is asking for something simple: treat judges like human beings, even when you disagree with their rulings. The fact that this plea is necessary, and that it will be dismissed by the same people who spent years trying to pack, delegitimize, and intimidate the Court, tells you everything about who actually threatens judicial independence in America.
Respect for the bench is not optional in a free society. It is the price of having one.