This isn’t Scandal, but if it were, Erika Kirk and JD Vance would end up together and Usha Vance would fade to the background out of embarrassment. That being said, people are convinced that Erika now has eyes for Vance after they embraced during a November 2025 Turning Point USA event where Erika spoke on-stage to the audience.
Clips have floated around online about the event, and in one that was shared on TikTok, the user who posted it wrote in the caption about the “conspiracy” of Erika and Vance getting together at some point.
This is all because of a close embrace that Erika and Vance shared at the event, on-stage in front of everyone. And a hug is totally fine. A full-body embrace, complete with Erika’s hand on the back of Vance’s head? Not so much.
People think Erika Kirk has her eyes on JD Vance.
@naz.motiv Erika Kirk states that no one will ever replace her husband… but inappropriately hugs Vice President JD Vance #charliekirk #jdvance #erikakirk ♬ som original – SpxMac
Maybe it’s just one big silly conspiracy that people who loathe both Erika and Vance are enjoying. But if there’s more to it, that wouldn’t be the most surprising thing in the world, to be quite honest.
Their embrace was the hug heard (or, rather seen) around the internet and splashed on social media in tons of videos where people dissected every millisecond of movement from the two of them.
“I have never in my life touched the back of another man’s head,” someone pointed out.
Personally, I have. But that man was my husband, so yeah.
Someone else wrote that they think there is much more to the hug that Erika and Vance shared.
“She has held that head before,” they wrote. “It was too smooth. That’s not how ‘friends’ hug. I’ve never hugged my husband’s friends by their head.”
Another person joked (though not gonna lie, they had me in the first half), “Stop hating on Erika. She’s clearly going through the five stages of grief: acceptance, promote to CEO, world tour, rebranding, [and] Mrs. JD Vance soft launch.”
It also doesn’t help that, at the Turning Point USA event, Erika referred to Vance by first name and spoke about him in the same sentence as her late husband.
“No one will ever replace my husband,” Erika said. “But I do see some similarities of my husband in JD, in Vice President JD Vance. I do. And that’s why I am so blessed to be able to introduce him tonight.”
“No one will ever replace Charlie….but I do see some similarities of my husband in JD…Vice President JD Vance”
— Rupa Murthy (@rupamurthy1) October 31, 2025
~Says Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk.
These words seem out of place…much like her leather pants. pic.twitter.com/2SJ384AEWZ
JD Vance has been criticized for how he talks about wife Usha.
Maybe another reason why people are so quick to jump on the conspiracy theory train about Erika and Vance has to do with how Vance has publicly spoken about his wife Usha.
At the same Turning Point USA event where Erika introduced Vance on-stage, he mentioned a hope that his wife, who is Hindu, might convert to Christianity, and he received major backlash for that.
Vance also said that, should Usha decide to never convert, that also works for him. But the fact that he mentioned her faith at all caused some blow-back for him. Imagine that.
You mention something important to your wife that you hope she might change her mind about, and people don’t like it. Wild.
