Republican Sen. Rand Paul lashed out at JD Vance’s “disdain for human life” after the vice president said he “didn’t give a s–t” about committing war crimes against alleged drug traffickers.
The rift exploded when Vice President Vance celebrated the sinking of a small Venezuelan boat alleged to contain several drug traffickers.
The Kentucky senator said it was “worrisome” if the new Coast Guard policy was indiscriminate strikes on boats.
Vance wrote on X, after reports that 11 people had been killed in the strikes, “Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.”
When an X user told Vance that he was celebrating a “war crime,” the vice president angrily responded, “I don’t give a s–t what you call it,” prompting a rebuke from Paul. “What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial,” he wrote on X.
The Kentucky senator continued his war of words, telling CNN’s Manu Raju, “When you’re second in charge of a big country that represents freedom, the Constitution, the rule of law, I think people ought to be a little more thoughtful about tweeting out, sort of a gleeful, ‘I don’t give a s--t what people say, we’re just going to blow people up and watch us, we’ll blow people up the next day.’
“If the new policy is that we will blow you up if we think you might be a drug dealer, that’s kind of a worrisome policy,” he added.
“Maybe the boat was coming here. Maybe it wasn’t. But nobody’s even asking whether we need to prove that. We just blow them up,” he later told Politico. “I got no love lost for these people. But at the same time, is this the new Coast Guard policy? Almost none of the boats we’ve interdicted does it end up with us blowing up the boat.”
“But I think what really ticked me off and got me going,” he said, referring to his spat with Vance, “was for someone to glorify the idea of killing people without any due process and saying he just didn’t give a s--t what anybody who was going to criticize him was going to say. That to me was a disdain for human life and a disdain for processes.”
Paul said he has not heard from Vance or anyone from the White House following his clash with the VP. He also clarified that his outrage over the extrajudicial killings should not be interpreted as support for drug trafficking.
“It doesn’t mean I’m pro-fentanyl because I think we should figure out if someone actually is a drug dealer before we kill them,” he said. “No, that just means that I’m pro having some kind of process before you kill people.”
Eleven people are believed to have been killed during the naval strikes over the weekend. There is no proof that anyone on board the vessel was involved in drug trafficking.
The Daily Beast has contacted The White House and JD Vance for further comment.
