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JD Vance Fast Facts

By CNN

(CNN) — Here is a look at the life of Vice President JD Vance.

Personal

Birth date: August 2, 1984

Birth place: Middletown, Ohio

Birth name: James Donald Bowman

Father: Donald Bowman

Mother: Beverly Aikins, nurse

Marriage: Usha (Chilukuri) Vance (2014-present)

Children: Ewan, Vivek, Mirabel and Alec

Education: Ohio State University, B.A., 2009; Yale Law School, J.D., 2013

Military service: US Marine Corps, 2003–2007, Corporal

Religion: Catholic

Other Facts

Served in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

His mother struggled with drug addiction. Vance was raised mainly by his maternal grandparents.

Has had multiple middle and last name changes: James Donald Bowman, James David Hamel and James David Vance. Initially, his middle and last names changed when his mother remarried. When he married, he and his wife changed their last name to Vance.

Yale law professor Amy Chua convinced Vance to write his memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.”

Was a key voice in the “Never Trump” movement during the 2016 presidential election and has publicly criticized former President Donald Trump. Vance liked tweets in 2016 and 2017 that harshly criticized Trump and his policies, and in a review of Vance’s media appearances by CNN’s KFile, has made anti-Trump comments in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Vance deleted past anti-Trump tweets ahead of his announcement in July 2021 that he would run for the open Ohio Senate seat.

Timeline

2014-2015 – Works as a litigator with Sidley Austin.

2016-2017 – Works at Mithril Capital Management.

June 28, 2016 – “Hillbilly Elegy,” which chronicles Vance’s childhood in a poor Rust Belt town in Ohio, is published.

March 27, 2017 – Joins Revolution LLC as a partner.

2019 – Forms Narya Capital.

2020 – “Hillbilly Elegy” is adapted into a Netflix movie.

July 1, 2021 – Announces he will run for the open Ohio Senate seat.

July 5, 2021 – On Fox News, Vance apologizes for criticizing Trump and asks viewers not to judge him on his past statements.

November 8, 2022 – Elected to the US Senate.

July 15, 2024 – Trump names Vance as his running mate.

November 5, 2024 – Trump and Vance defeat Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 presidential election.

January 10, 2025 – Resigns from the US Senate ahead of assuming the vice presidency.

January 20, 2025 – Is sworn in as vice president of the United States.

March 24, 2025 – The Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg reports that he was accidentally added to a Signal group chat detailing operational plans and other likely highly classified information about US military strikes on Yemen. National security advisor Mike Waltz started the group thread that included Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. On March 26, 2025, The Atlantic publishes additional text messages from the group chat following the Trump administration and those in the group downplaying the sensitivity of the information.

January 5, 2026 – A man is arrested for vandalizing the Ohio residence of Vance. A Secret Service spokesperson said the man was detained “for causing property damage, including breaking windows on the exterior of a personal residence associated with” Vance. The Vance family was not in Ohio at the time of the incident.

January 20, 2026 – Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, announce they are expecting a baby this summer. The couple already have three children. On July 19, 2026 the couple announces the birth of their fourth child, Alec Neel Vance, marking the first time in more than 150 years that a second lady has given birth while in office.

June 16, 2026 – “Communion,” a book chronicling Vance’s conversion to Catholicism, is published.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

Rather than capitulating to the US, Iran toughens its demands over the vital Strait of Hormuz

By CNN
(CNN) — The list of demands from Iran can’t have surprised the White House.Hardliners have been repeating the mantra on a daily basis: the limited agreement in the works with Oman on the Strait of Hormuz is not the same as reopening the vital waterway in the way Washington wants.For that, they say, “America must correct its behavior.”Tehran has now spelled out what means, laying out a series of conditions that appear to go beyond the memorandum of understanding which was agreed in June but later suspended amid US strikes on Iran, Iranian retaliation across the Middle East and a resurgence of attacks on shipping.On Saturday, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, a highly influential figure in the Revolutionary Guards, reeled off a maximalist set of demands.That Iran is issuing such demands underlines the perception that Tehran believes it has the upper hand. CNN has reported on dwindling US munitions - something angrily denied by President Trump - and suggestions that his top general is looking for an “off-ramp” in the conflict.It is also likely that Iran has taken notice of how many times Trump has threatened major strikes before not following through on the threat.Zolghadr demanded the US lift its naval blockade and withdraw its military forces from around Iran.The US must also pay damages caused to Iran by the wars this year and in June last year (which was principally conducted by Israel), he said. And the US must lift sanctions and release, unconditionally, Iranian assets frozen abroad.The implication of Zolghadr’s statement was that these conditions must be fulfilled before or in tandem with concessions on the strait, which would be at odds with the formula set out in the memorandum of understanding.That held that sanctions would be fully removed once a final deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program was reached and envisaged a phased release of assets, in which the two sides “will mutually agree on the procedures related to the release of these funds.”Iran’s apparent new strategy, though, is not without risk.The fresh demands “narrows the options for the Trump administration,” according to the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, James Stavridis.“Iran is overplaying its hand and it appears the hardliners are in control. The likelihood of a deal in the immediate term is declining,” Stavridis posted on X Sunday.No US-Iran talks underwayThe Trump administration has not responded to the latest Iranian conditions.“What we’re really working through now is how you can actually set up a traffic scheme so that the ships that pass can pass through safely,” US Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on Saturday.But the current situation smacks of stalemate.Iranian officials, whether perceived as moderates or hardliners, are saying that renewed negotiations with the US are not in prospect.“As long as the United States has not addressed its violations of the memorandum of understanding and remedied those breaches, we see no possibility of restarting negotiations,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday.“We currently have no negotiations with America. Yes, there is an exchange of messages through intermediaries,” he added.Araghchi referred to the more limited and temporary arrangement for Hormuz being negotiated with Oman, which borders its southern shoreline.“I can say we are in the final stages, and the old routes that existed will be replaced with new routes,” he said, referring to how the thin traffic traveling through the strait is currently split between Iranian and Omani paths.“This, of course, does not mean the opening of the Strait of Hormuz,” Araghchi told reporters in Tehran, which was “subject to the fulfillment of a series of other conditions.”Other Iranian officials have indicated that an agreement with Oman would continue to give Iran considerable influence in the strait, which it did not enjoy before the war but which has become a red line as important as the nuclear issue for Tehran.Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said last week the arrangement reflects a new strategy for exercising “effective sovereignty” over the strait, while stressing that Iran does not intend to routinely close the waterway in peacetime.Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei cautioned last week that there could be a deal with Oman “provided that certain third parties do not obstruct the process” in a far from cryptic reference to the US.Amidst the uncertainty – and sporadic attacks on ships passing through the Strait – traffic remains very limited. An average of about a dozen vessels a day have transited in the past week, according to shipping data.That’s about one-tenth of the normal pre-war traffic.Already into its sixth month, the conflict between the US and Iran shows no sign of resolution - but has instead evolved into an unpredictable cycle of escalation and pause.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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