Vice President Mike Pence Thursday morning officially announced the Trump administration’s call to establish a sixth separate branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, Space Force.
A White House press release also issued Thursday brags that back in June, President Trump had already “directed the Department of Defense to immediately begin the important process of establishing Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.”
President Trump does not have the authority to direct the Defense Dept. to establish a new brach of the armed forces – only Congress can do so. And it will take money – a lot of money – to create this new and wholly unnecessary Space Force.
“When it comes to defending our nation and defending our way of life, the only thing we can’t afford is inaction,” Pence said Thursday.
Pence claims $8 billion in just the first five years.
Both were immediately and brutally mocked, for a wide variety of reasons.
Pence said that “the Space Force will not be built from scratch, because the men and women who run and protect our nation’s space programs today are already the best in the world.”
One social media commenter noted that about all we have.
Last night, ahead of Pence’s announcement, Jimmy Kimmel posted a Space Force recruitment video:
Just after Pence’s announcement Trump weighed in:
Meanwhile, others on social media were only too happy to mock the President and Vice President for what experts agree is a bad and unnecessary idea. One of those experts, the National security reporter for the Daily Beast, Spencer Ackerman:
CNN Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto:
Others also shared their thoughts, often in a more humorous manner: