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Vice President JD Vance has come under fire for making a joke about recent U.S. strikes on Venezuelan boats.
The U.S. military conducted a strike against alleged Tren de Aragua gang members allegedly transporting drugs on a boat on September 2.
President Donald Trump said the strike killed 11 people.
JD Vance joked about not going fishing after deadly boat strikes
Image credits: Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
- Vice President JD Vance joked about U.S. strikes on Venezuelan boats, saying he wouldn’t go fishing in the area right now.
- Two U.S. strikes targeted alleged drug traffickers on Venezuelan boats, killing 14 people according to the U.S. military.
- Critics condemned Vance’s joke, arguing it mocked deadly strikes and showed disregard for potential civilian casualties.
- Venezuelan officials denied the killed were gang members, accusing the U.S. of unjustified attacks on innocent people.
On September 15, the U.S. carried out a second strike on a boat it again alleged was trafficking drugs from Venezuela to America. Three people were killed in the strike.
During a visit to Michigan on Wednesday, Vance appeared to make light of the strikes and said he wouldn’t go fishing right now.
Speaking to the crowd at a Hatch Stamping Company facility in Howell, Vance recalled a conversation with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.
“We don’t see any of these drug boats coming into our country. They’ve completely stopped,” Hegseth reportedly told Vance.
Vance on Trump’s strikes on boats: “I wouldn’t go fishing right now in that area of the world.” pic.twitter.com/YdXmvCkV2B
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 17, 2025
The audience laughed as Vance told them, “I said, I know why. I would stop too.”
“Hell, I wouldn’t go fishing right now in that area of the world,” he added.
“But that is what a military that is dedicated to its purpose and a commander in chief that is dedicated to the national good can do.”
The speech quickly circulated online, with critics alleging the joke suggested that the U.S. administration was willing to hurt civilians.
“This really isn’t funny. Countries don’t have the right to shoot down vessels in international waters without legal justification,” one social media user wrote.
Image credits: Miguel J. Rodríguez Carrillo/Getty Images
“Implicitly acknowledging the administration has no idea who or what they’re blowing up!” another added.
A third person wrote: “The Vice President of the United States doesn’t even know if they are killing drug dealers or fishermen.”
One user posted: “Wow! It’s great that MAGA thinks bombing fishing boats with no evidence of drug trafficking is funny!”
Trump has described the people on board the boats as “narcoterrorists” and alleges they were transporting illegal narcotics in international waters.
After the second strike earlier this week, Trump shared details of the operation on Truth Social and posted a short clip that showed a vessel being blown up.
Trump has alleged that the people on board the boats were drug traffickers
Image credits: Leon Neal/Getty Images
“The Strike occurred while these confirmed narcoterrorists from Venezuela were in International Waters transporting illegal narcotics (A DEADLY WEAPON POISONING AMERICANS!) headed to the U.S,” Trump wrote.
“These extremely violent drug trafficking cartels POSE A THREAT to U.S. National Security, Foreign Policy, and vital U.S. Interests.”
He added: “BE WARNED — IF YOU ARE TRANSPORTING DRUGS THAT CAN KILL AMERICANS, WE ARE HUNTING YOU! The illicit activities by these cartels have wrought DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES ON AMERICAN COMMUNITIES FOR DECADES, killing millions of American Citizens. NO LONGER.”
Tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela have been rising in recent months.
Last week, Venezuelan officials said that none of the 11 people killed in the September 2 strike were members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
“They openly confessed to killing 11 people,” Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s interior minister, said on state television.
“We have done our investigations here in our country and there are the families of the disappeared people who want their relatives, and when we asked in the towns, none were from Tren de Aragua, none were drug traffickers.”
The country’s President Nicolas Maduro – who is widely seen as a dictator – has also accused the U.S. of police, diplomatic, political and military aggression.
“The communications with the government of the U.S. are thrown away. They are thrown away by them with their threats of bombs, death and blackmail,” Maduro said.
The U.S. has described Maduro as “one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world” and announced a $50 million reward for any information leading to his arrest and capture in August.
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