Mike Pence succumbed to everyone’s secret museum impulse when he reached out and touched a piece of equipment clearly labeled “DO NOT TOUCH.”
The contact with the critical space flight hardware occurred during the Vice President’s tour of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Thursday and was captured by a Reuters photographer. Pence explained why he did it on Friday: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio dared him.
Rubio teased back that he warned Pence about breaking the hardware:
But NASA says no apology is necessary, tweeting at the Vice President that “it was OK to touch the surface” because they were about to clean the item anyway.
The image of Pence has now become a meme, with viewers joking about impulse control, Pence’s policy of not having dinner alone with women who aren’t his wife, and even the famous orb photo of President Trump.
The Vice President got in on the joke, and even tweeted a photoshopped image himself:
- Here’s How Effective the Original Vaccines Are Against Omicron
- The Promise—And Possible Perils—of Editing What We Say Online
- How Trump Survived Decades of Legal Trouble: Deny, Deflect, Delay, and Don't Put Anything in Writing
- Flint Is Still Shaken by its Water Crisis—and Residents Are Experiencing Long-Term Mental-Health Issues
- A Beer Shortage Is Brewing. A Volcano Is Partly to Blame
- How Fasting Can—and Can't—Improve Gut Health
- Cities Keep Enforcing Curfews for Teens, Despite Evidence They Don't Stop Crime
- Joe Manchin’s Red Tape Reform Could Supercharge Renewable Energy in the U.S.
- Column: We Should Talk More About What a Brilliant Actor Marilyn Monroe Was
