Vice President JD Vance is having a temper tantrum over people criticizing the phrase “thoughts and prayers” as a suitable response to a deadly mass shooting.
MSNBC host Jen Psaki called out leaders’ lackluster response to the school shooting in Minneapolis Wednesday, drawing the ire of the vice president.
“Prayer is not freaking enough,” Psaki wrote in a post on X Thursday. “Prayers does not end school shootings. Prayers do not make parents feel safe sending their kids to school. Prayer does not bring these kids back. Enough with the thoughts and prayers.”
Vance, who is known for his emotional outbursts—both online and off—appeared to have been stewing on this argument, and slammed Psaki’s statement.
“We pray because our hearts are broken. We pray because we know God listens. We pray because we know that God works in mysterious ways, and can inspire us to further action,” Vance wrote Thursday morning. “Why do you feel the need to attack other people for praying when kids were just killed praying?”
Vance appears to be willfully misinterpreting Psaki’s criticism. The host was making the point that constituents should expect more from their leaders than some kind of rhetoric—and the “further action” Vance mentions never seems to materialize after mass shootings.
The vice president had offered his own helpless response to the deadly incident on Wednesday. “We’re at the WH monitoring the situation in Minneapolis. Join all of us in praying for the victims!” Vance wrote.
It’s worth noting that the Trump administration is already leaping into action—but not by banning guns, or doing anything that might actually prevent another mass shooting.
President Trump announced Wednesday that the White House would lower the flags to half-mast through Sunday evening. And on Thursday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he would investigate whether antidepressants can be linked to homicidal ideation (spoiler alert: the NIH have already found no significant connection between the two).
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