In June and July 2025, videos surfaced on social media alleging that Vice President JD Vance told Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, to “go back to the zoo” during a congressional hearing without any evidence to corroborate the claim. Snopes readers wrote in and searched the site asking to fact-check the claim. However, the assertion was false.
The false rumor stemmed from a video uploaded on June 1, 2025, by the YouTube channel DP Insights with the title “JD Vance INSULTS Jasmine Crockett “Go Back to The Zoo” — Her Reply Left America SPEECHLESS.” Artificial intelligence video-creation tools seemingly helped the video’s narration, scripting, and sequencing.
Without naming a source for its information, the video’s narrator said:
JD Vance muttered “go back to the zoo,” during a live congressional hearing. But what Jasmine Crockett said next didn’t just shut the room down, it made the whole country stop and think.
That YouTube video had been viewed more than 68,000 times, as of this writing. Other videos sharing the claim also have been uploaded to TikTok and YouTube.
There was no evidence to support the assertion that Vance had told Crockett to “go back to the zoo.” If Vance had made such a statement, mainstream media would have documented the incident and there likely would have been a large public outcry over the racist remark.
In short, the claim appeared to be made up from whole cloth for the purpose of gaining views online. A disclaimer at the bottom of the YouTube video read:
The stories presented on this channel are entirely fictional and crafted solely for entertainment. Any resemblance to real events, individuals, or situations is purely coincidental and unintentional. These narratives are not intended to depict, reference, or represent any actual occurrences, persons, or entities..
Despite the fact that the video’s underlying claim was false, the clip could seem believable because of the Trump presidential administration’s increasingly inflammatory speech and actions against immigrants and other minorities. Mixing that context with emotionally charged language allows such videos with baseless rumors often generate thousands of comments from YouTube users. Some of those messages indicate that people interpret the videos to be real news.
This was not the first misleading rumor related to Vance and Crockett that captured social media users’ attention. For example, we previously debunked the false claim that Vance tried to “challenge” Crockett during a congressional hearing, an assertion that was also shared in a YouTube video from the DP Insights channel.
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