Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is under fire from fellow Republicans after an unusual social media post attacking Vice President JD Vance over the Trump administration’s military strike on a Venezuelan drug-smuggling boat.
The strike, which Pentagon officials confirmed eliminated eleven cartel-linked traffickers operating in international waters, has been praised by conservatives as a bold demonstration of Trump’s willingness to use American power to defend the homeland. Democrats, however, have expressed outrage, calling the move unlawful and “reckless.”
Vice President Vance defended the action in blunt terms, declaring on X that “killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.” Left-wing commentator Brian Krassenstein quickly accused Vance of endorsing war crimes. The vice president shot back with, “I don’t give a sh*t what you call it,” a comment that instantly went viral.
Rather than siding with the administration, Senator Paul jumped into the fray and blasted Vance in a post of his own. “JD ‘I don’t give a sh*t’ 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. He went on to argue that executing suspects without trial was immoral and “despicable.”
The response was swift and merciless. Conservative social media users mocked Paul’s invocation of Harper Lee’s famous novel, accusing him of defending “foreign narco-terrorists” while ignoring the devastation of fentanyl and other drugs in American communities. The Trump War Room account piled on by posting a meme of SpongeBob SquarePants weeping over “dead drug dealers.”
“You’re demanding a full trial for every two-bit drug-peddling scumbag foreigner that poisons and kills Americans,” one user wrote. “This post lost at the ballot box,” another added.
The backlash has extended to Capitol Hill. Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) publicly rebuked Paul, stating: “What’s really despicable is defending foreign terrorist drug traffickers who are directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in Kentucky and Ohio. JD understands that our first responsibility is to protect the life and liberty of American citizens.”
Paul, a longtime libertarian voice in the Senate, has frequently opposed military interventions abroad. Yet this latest critique has left him isolated in his own party, where most Republicans are rallying behind Trump and Vance’s hardline stance against cartel violence.
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