U.S. Vice President JD Vance and second lady Usha Vance visit the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial, in Yerevan, Armenia, February 10, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/Pool
Vice President JD Vance's Armenia trip took a dramatic turn when the White House hastily scrubbed a social media post in which he called the 1915 Armenian massacres a "genocide," claiming it was posted "in error" by overzealous staff.
The awkward delete came after Vance and his wife, Usha, laid wreaths at the Tsitsernakaberd Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, making history as the first U.S. vice presidential visit to the South Caucasus nation, Reuters reported.
His official X account had described the visit as meant to "honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide." But the post mysteriously vanished shortly thereafter, and a Vance spokesperson insisted the account was "managed by staff," blaming the gaffe on workers who weren't traveling with the delegation. When asked directly if the visit recognized a genocide, Vance himself dodged the word entirely, calling it "a very terrible thing" that was "very, very important to them culturally."
The blunder raises eyebrows about the Trump administration's social media chaos. This marks the second major deletion in days, following the White House's scramble to remove a racist depiction of Barack and Michelle Obama from Trump's Truth Social account.
To boot, Turkey, a key NATO ally, has refused to acknowledge the killings as genocide, and the Trump administration appears eager to keep Ankara happy. Despite Congress and Biden recognizing 1915 as genocide, Trump has avoided such language.
Armenian advocacy groups fumed. "Vance is a coward for deleting this post," fired back Alex Galitsky of the Armenian National Committee of America, calling it "an insult to the memory" of 1.5 million victims.
The blunder comes after Vance was booed at the Olympics and a New York Times columnist made a startling social media post he couldn't think of a parent who "wouldn’t sell" Vance for drugs.