Fact Check

Did Vance once post 'Black Lives Matter' and 'No human is illegal' message?

Social media users claimed the post symbolized Vance's political evolution, from being anti-Trump to running as his vice president.

by Taija PerryCook, Published July 2, 2026


This image shows U.S. Vice President alongside a screenshot of an X post by him reading "In This House We Believe Black Lives Matter," "No Human is Illegal," "Prigozhin is a Liberal Reformer" and "Love is Love."

Image courtesy of Andrew Harnik, accessed via Getty Images, and @JDVance via X, illustrated by Snopes


Claim:
In June 2023, U.S. Vice President JD Vance posted on X: "In this house we believe: Black Lives Matter. No human is illegal. Prigozhin is a Liberal reformer. Love is love."
Rating:
Correct Attribution

About this rating

Context

Although the post is real, a spokesperson for Vance said it was intended satirically. For example, Yevgeny Prigozhin — who Vance called a "liberal reformer" in the post — was a Russian oligarch who staged a mutiny in June 2023, weeks before his death.


In June 2026, a resurfaced X post attributed to U.S. Vice President JD Vance circulated online, reading: "In this house we believe: Black Lives Matter. No human is illegal. Prigozhin is a Liberal reformer. Love is love."

Multiple X users shared the purported 2023 X post (archived), with one person writing (archived), "Woke JD Vance."

Some people claimed the post symbolized the vice president's political evolution — in 2016, Vance described Trump as "America's Hitler" before appearing alongside him on the 2024 presidential ballot.

In short, the X post is real (archived) and Vance posted it on June 25, 2023. In response to that post, he wrote (archived): "Everyone update their signs."

The vice president's wording references a yard sign made popular after U.S. President Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. It read: "In this house, we believe: Black Lives Matter. Women's rights are human rights. No human is illegal. Science is real. Love is love. Kindness is everything."

This image shows a black sign with multi-colored lettering reading:

(Photo courtesy of Rick Obst, accessed via Wikimedia Commons.)

Though many social media users concluded Vance's post proved he had more liberal views prior to his vice presidential run, a spokesperson for his office said via phone call that Vance meant it as a joke to satirize liberal ideology.

Yevgeny Prigozhin — whom Vance called a "liberal reformer" in the 2023 post — was a Russian oligarch whose rebellious mercenary forces, the Wagner Group, staged a mutiny against the Russian military in June 2023, weeks before his death.

When Vance posted the joke on June 25 that year, the Wagner Group had just launched its failed uprising on Moscow, undermining Russian President Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine.

By August 24, 2023, a U.S. intelligence assessment indicated that an intentional explosion caused the plane crash that killed Prigozhin. "We all know that the Kremlin has a long history of killing opponents," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at the time. "It's very clear what happened here."


By Taija PerryCook

Taija PerryCook is a Seattle-based journalist who previously worked for the PNW news site Crosscut and the Jordan Times in Amman.


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