A contentious but routine event unfolded in Washington this week: a cabinet secretary was subjected to tough, critical questioning by a Senate committee. But the response from the executive branch was anything but routine. In a shocking and unprecedented move, the Vice President of the United States took to social media to launch a profane, ad hominem attack on the senators who were performing their constitutional duty.
This is a dangerous breakdown in the norms of civil discourse and mutual respect between the executive and legislative branches. It is a test of whether our system of checks and balances can function when the branches view each other not as co-equal partners in governance, but as illegitimate enemies.
The President of the Senate Attacks the Senate
The entire episode is a stunning constitutional irony. The Vice President’s only formal, explicit duty laid out in the Constitution, in Article I, Section 3, is to serve as the President of the Senate. He is the presiding officer of the very legislative body that he is now publicly attacking.
“When I see all these senators trying to lecture and ‘gotcha’ Bobby Kennedy today all I can think is: You all support off-label, untested, and irreversible hormonal ‘therapies’ for children, mutilating our kids and enriching big pharma,” Vice President Vance wrote. “You’re full of s— and everyone knows it.”
This is a direct and vulgar conflict between his constitutional role and his political actions. The man who holds the gavel of the Senate is publicly accusing its members of being disingenuous liars, an act of profound contempt for the institution he is meant to lead.
An Assault on the Power of Oversight
This coordinated response from the White House – with the Press Secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff joining the Vice President in attacking the committee – is an assault on the separation of powers itself. The Senate hearing was a legitimate and essential exercise of Congress’s Article I power of oversight. It is the legislature’s solemn duty to hold the executive branch accountable for its actions and its spending.
The administration’s response is not a simple defense of its policies. It is an attempt to delegitimize the oversight process entirely. The White House is framing the senators’ tough questions not as a valid inquiry, but as an illegitimate “lecture” from people who are mere “parrots of a failed medical orthodoxy.” This sends a chilling message: challenge this administration, and you will be met not with a reasoned defense, but with contempt.
The Erosion of Deliberative Democracy
Our constitutional system cannot function without a baseline of mutual respect and good-faith engagement between the branches. When the executive branch views congressional oversight not as a legitimate constitutional function but as an attack to be met with profanity, the very possibility of deliberative democracy is destroyed.
It transforms a system of separated powers, designed for debate and compromise, into a permanent state of political warfare. It suggests that the administration no longer sees the legislative branch as a co-equal partner in governance, but as an enemy to be publicly attacked and delegitimized.
The Vice President’s social media post is more than just a memorable and profane outburst. It is a powerful symbol of a constitutional system in distress. This is a dangerous path for a republic that relies on the delicate balance of power – and a measure of mutual respect – to protect its liberties.