Critics pounced on JD Vance on Sunday after the vice president scrambled to answer a common question about the Trump administration's motives for attacking Venezuela.
Vance over the weekend took to X to explain the administration's attack on Venezuela on a purported mission to stop fentanyl trafficking, considering the controversial drug doesn't flow from there.
"First off, fentanyl isn't the only drug in the world and there is still fentanyl coming from Venezuela (or at least there was)," he claimed, adding, "Cocaine is bad too!"
That response didn't sit well with numerous political observers, including Jennifer Jenkins, who is running for U.S. Senate in Florida.
"Fifth - and this is me speaking as an American who’s tired of being lied to: Thanks for admitting it. This was never about fentanyl. It’s oil," she added to Vance's text. "I don’t want another forever war sold with better branding. And neither do most Americans."
News insider David Clinch replied by saying, "On the surface this reads like 'America First' and re-establishing some kind of lost status, when in fact it is a retreat from America’s status as the World’s only true Super Power to an old 'Great Powers + Spheres of Influence' status that suits Russia and China just fine."
Literary editor Eric Nelson made a historical comparison:
“Are we just supposed to allow a communist to steal our stuff in our hemisphere and do nothing? Great powers don't act like that.”— JD Vance
“It’s either war or the end of Italy’s name as a great power.”—Mussolini
Legal analyst Marcy Wheeler, of EmptyWheel, was stunned by what she called a serious "admission" about the administration's earlier moves.
"WOWOWO. @JDVance confesses the Administration has been lying about the murderboat strikes," she wrote Sunday. "Will he report @StephenM to be prosecuted to Pam Bondi?"