In December 2025, an image circulated on social media purportedly showing U.S. Vice President JD Vance arguing with his wife, Usha Vance, in a restaurant.
The image appeared to show JD Vance wearing a white T-shirt and a stern expression while sitting across from Usha Vance. One Facebook user who shared it (archived) wrote:
Looks like things are not so good in Republicanistan. Usha is a liberal. Always has been. Apparently they were having and [sic] argument loud enough to quiet the restaurant. Why is he wearing a tee shirt?
The image circulated elsewhere on Facebook and X (archived here and here).
In short, while Snopes could not definitively confirm whether the image was AI-generated or simply miscaptioned, we identified multiple signs suggesting it’s unlikely to be a real photo of the Vances.
JD Vance himself appeared to support that conclusion in a Dec. 9 X post (archived), replying to a user who shared the image with a comment that seemed to poke fun at the rumor: “I always wear an undershirt when I go out in public to have a fight loudly with my wife.”
We ran the image through three AI-detection platforms: Hive, Sightengine and Image Whisperer. Sightengine estimated a 97% probability that the image was AI-generated, while Image Whisperer concluded with “high confidence” it was AI-generated.
Hive, however, flagged the image as “not likely to contain AI-generated or deepfake content.” It’s worth noting that these tools are not always accurate and their results should be interpreted with caution.
The team at GetReal Security, which specializes in authenticating digital media, also analyzed the image.
Hany Farid, co-founder of GetReal and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told Snopes that the image’s low quality made forensic analysis difficult. However, the team found “biometric anomalies” suggesting the image “may be AI-generated or is simply a photo of someone that resembles [JD] Vance.”
“In particular, the facial features in the image do not match contemporaneous images of Vance,” Farid added. Contemporaneous images are photos taken around the same time that are used to verify another image’s authenticity.
Facebook user Thomas Clay Jr. was among the first people to share the image on social media (archived). He told Snopes via Facebook Messenger that he did not know “where the image came from,” adding that he simply saw it in his feed and posted it on his page.
The image spread online amid rumors of a rift in the Vances’ marriage, which began to spread in October 2025. Photos of Usha Vance without her wedding ring taken the following month further fueled speculation.
However, a spokesperson told USA Today in a Nov. 21 statement that Usha Vance “is a mother of three young children, who does a lot of dishes, gives lots of baths, and forgets her ring sometimes.” Other publicly available Getty Images from November showed Usha Vance wearing her wedding ring.
In a Dec. 4 interview with NBC News, JD Vance said the couple’s marriage is “as strong as it’s ever been.”
