Revealed: The Left-wing Cambridge days of America’s new second lady

The photograph captures a quintessential Oxbridge scene.

Rows of eager faces beam at the camera from the lawn of Cambridge University’s Clare College to mark the start of the 2009/10 academic year.

There is little to distinguish Usha Chilukuri, as she was then, from her contemporaries.

On closer inspection, however, she is clearly recognisable as the woman who walked into the spotlight of political power on Monday.

That young Cambridge history student is now set to become one of the most talked-about figures in Washington DC, known by her married name: Usha Vance.

America’s new second lady, the wife of JD Vance, the US vice-president, made the front pages in Britain at the inauguration of Donald Trump thanks to her stark pink jacket.

It is her intelligence that has wowed the new US president, who took the opportunity in his second speech on Monday to joke that he wished she had been his running mate.

“The only one smarter than him was his wife,” Mr Trump said of JD and Usha. “I would have chosen her but somehow the line of succession didn’t work that way.”

What the new leader of the free world may be unaware of is quite how liberal Mrs Vance, 39, was in her student days, according to contemporaries who have talked to The Telegraph.

Mrs Vance spent a year at Cambridge studying for an MPhil in early modern history. She won the opportunity by being awarded a Gates scholarship, a fiercely competitive prize.

Successful applicants must show “outstanding intellectual ability”, “a commitment to improving the lives of others” and “leadership potential”, according to the award’s website.

The scholarships were created by Bill and Melinda Gates. Mr Gates, the Microsoft founder, was noticeably not among the high-profile tech billionaires who attended Mr Trump’s swearing-in ceremony.

Mrs Vance’s upbringing was one of middle-class comforts in a San Diego suburb – a stark contrast to her future husband’s disrupted working-class childhood in Ohio, which would be powerfully retold in his best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy.

The book, eventually turned into a film directed by Ron Howard, thrust Mr Vance into the spotlight and opened doors to a political career that saw him flip from Trump critic to adoring acolyte, reaching the White House as a result.

Mrs Vance has been on a similar journey. Her year at Cambridge was sandwiched between stints at Yale University, the second of which saw her meet Mr Vance, who once described her as “my Yale spirit guide”.

Cambridge contemporaries of Mrs Vance do not recall any MAGA traits.

One fellow Gates scholar at Cambridge said he had been taken aback by her embrace of the Trump political machine in the 15 years since they left.

“She generally fitted in with the Gates Cambridge community-scholarly, Left-leaning, cosmopolitan, committed to improving the world,” the source recalled.

“I certainly don’t remember any indication whatsoever that she harboured any far-Right political views or would tolerate somebody who did. Her current position has been surprising to many in the Gates community that I’ve talked to about it.”

Others, however, offered warm words.

Dr Bo-Shiun Lai, who worked with Mrs Vance on a magazine produced about Gates scholars, was full of praise.

Dr Lai said: “I have nothing but glowing things to say about her work ethic and her ability to work with the (Gates) Trust and myself, while balancing her busy life as a clerk at the Supreme Court. She was warm, approachable, thoughtful, and very meticulous as a co-editor.”

Alexandra Mannerings, who also overlapped with her at Cambridge, remembers the joy Mrs Vance felt later when Hillbilly Elegy was published, sharing the news with Gates alumni.

“She was really proud of him and wanted us to know his story,” Ms Mannerings recalled. “I read Hillbilly Elegy right away on her recommendation and was very impacted by it.”

There is little public evidence of Mrs Vance’s time at Cambridge. She attended a masked ball, according to one photograph from the time identified by a contemporary as her.

She listed “exploring urban neighbourhoods”, “cooking” – Mrs Vance’s parents are Indian and she has joked about the challenge of convincing her husband to adopt her vegetarian diet – and “long walks” as interests in a student profile.

Plus, she added, “panicking about law school”.

One document does remain in the archives, however. It is the dissertation Mrs Vance wrote for her degree, a copy of which lies in Cambridge University’s Seeley Library.

The topic will be familiar to few: The nuances of how the principle of copyright emerged and morphed in mid-1600s Britain, specifically looking at the printer and bookseller John Field.

But the principles explored – how as printing presses boomed, entrepreneurs struggled to adapt to censorship pressure from those in power – are the opposite of Trumpian.

At one point in the manuscript, seen by The Telegraph, Mrs Vance writes about the “nascent movement for freedom of the press”. Elsewhere stories are recounted of how printers must adapt to the whims of monarchs, then politicians, as the Civil War rages.

On stage before the cameras on Monday, Mr Trump lavished praise on the Vances. “She’s great and he’s great,” he opined. “This is a great, beautiful couple.”

Just don’t tell The Donald what Usha really thinks of “fake news”.