Vice President JD Vance mocked CBS News on Wednesday, suggesting his mother-in-law was being “harassed” by its reporters in an attempt to attack President Donald Trump over diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.
CBS News published a story headlined, “She advanced DEI at her university. Her son-in-law, Vice President JD Vance, wants to end it nationwide,” that put a spotlight on Lakshmi Chilukuri, the provost of the University of California San Diego’s Sixth College, who is also Vance’s mother-in-law and the mother of second lady Usha Vance.
“Chilukuri helped create a pilot course on race, ethnicity and gender in biology and medicine, served on the university’s biological sciences diversity committee, and has written proudly of her school’s commitment to diversity,” CBS News reporters Graham Kates and Daniel Klaidman wrote.
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“A crackdown on what President Trump and Vance call ‘wokeness’ has been a hallmark of their administration’s first weeks,” Kates and Klaidman continued. “Widespread scalebacks of DEI programs in academia, government and across corporations have marked some of the administration’s earliest marquee victories.”
Vance blasted CBS News when he was asked for comment by the outlet.
“I don’t like DEI, and I’m proud of what our administration has done on that front,” Vance told CBS News.
“But I love my mother-in-law. If she doesn’t share my views on DEI I suppose I’ll have to do what 99 percent of Americans do when confronted with a family member who doesn’t always agree with them: get over it,” Vance added. “This story exists because CBS has decided that harassing my mother in law is a reasonable price in order to attack President Trump.”
CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
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Vance also told CBS that he chooses to focus on Chilukuri’s “kindness and the fact that she’s an incredible mother and loving grandmother to the most important people in my life.”
The CBS News piece went on to say that the “Trump administration has attacked DEI on college campuses with particular zeal, threatening investigations, lawsuits and canceled federal funding,” and noted that Vance “has been vocal about combatting DEI.”
Indeed, the Trump administration has made it a top priority to rid DEI from the federal bureaucracy and the president has signed multiple executive orders aimed at addressing what it argues is a practice that does more harm than good by ignoring meritocracy.
CBS also admitted its own parent company has ditched DEI initiatives since Trump took office.
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“Many corporations have followed suit, including CBS News’ parent company Paramount, which in late February ceased using hiring goals related to race, ethnicity, sex or gender, among other policy changes related to DEI,” Kates and Klaidman wrote.
Usha and JD Vance have been married since 2014, and they have three children together.
Trump filed a $20 billion lawsuit against CBS alleging election interference over its handling of a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, accusing the network of aiding his Democratic rival through deceptive editing just days before the election.
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