Even a GOP Senator Thinks JD Vance’s War Crimes Comment Is Disgusting
The vice president’s view on the deadly strike last week is really revealing.

Vice President JD Vance hit a new low while attempting to defend a deadly extrajudicial military strike on an alleged “drug boat,” and even Republicans are noticing.
Vance, who is known for his emotional outbursts—both online and off—has once again demonstrated that he can’t take any amount of criticism.
“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” Vance wrote on X Saturday morning, referring to the president’s strike on a boat in international waters last week. The government has claimed the strike killed 11 members of the Tren de Aragua gang who were bringing drugs to the United States.
Brian Krassenstein, a political podcaster and social media influencer critical of Trump, stepped in to remind Vance that the government hadn’t provided any actual evidence to support the claim that they were TdA members. (If it wasn’t true, it wouldn’t be the first time.)
“Killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime,” he wrote.
“I don’t give a shit what you call it,” Vance replied.
What Vance might have imagined as a defiant mic-drop moment betrayed his disturbing willingness to ignore federal and international law to commit executions.
Republican Senator Rand Paul slammed Vance’s statement.
“JD ‘I don’t give a shit’ Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the ‘highest and best use of the military.’ Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?” Paul wrote in a post on X. “Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation?? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”
Vance’s comment was particularly disturbing in light of remarks from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who imagines that he has “absolute authority” to commit acts of war against nations Congress has not declared war against.
In reality, the Trump administration received no legal authorization for the use of force, and is still struggling to invent a legal basis for its own strike. It seems they even struggled to decide where to say the boat was headed.