United States Senator from Ohio and 2024 GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance spoke, during his interview with Joe Rogan, about how his phone was hacked by a hacking group based in Communist China, but that all they found were his requests for milk and offensive memes he had saved.

For reference, the Chinese group appears to have infiltrated Verizon and target call and text data from 40 targets. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which helms the Cyber Safety Review Board, announced in a statement that it will “initiate a review of this incident at the appropriate time.”

Speaking to Rogan about how he protects most material on his phone by using encrypted apps, Senator Vance said, “Both Trump and my phone were hacked by Chinese hackers. They only got some offensive memes and me telling my wife to buy more milk at the grocery store. They couldn’t get my encrypted messages, I use Signal and iMessage.”

Continuing, Sen. Vance sounded off on how it was the much-maligned Patriot Act that gave the hackers the opportunity, he said, “The way that they hacked our phones is by using a backdoor telecom infrastructure that was developed in the wake of the Patriot Act. ATT/Verizon had to build all this infrastructure because of the act, and thats how the Chinese hacker group Salt Typhoon got in.”

Rogan, chiming in with humor, joked that the group has, whatever its faults, a really cool name. He said, “That’s an awesome name. Salt Typhoon.” Responding, Sen. Vance joked that it’s hard to be mad given the cool name, saying, “Yeah, I can’t be too mad. They have an awesome name.”

Responding to a post about the conversation on X, Trump ally Gen. Michael Flynn said that the act is unconstitutional and must be done away with, writing, “The patriot act needs to be abolished. There are more than enough rules in place already to do the job necessary to track down terrorists or supporters of terrorism.” Watch Vance’s comments here:

🚨VANCE: “Both Trump and my phone were hacked by Chinese hackers. They only got some offensive memes and me telling my wife to buy more milk at the grocery store. They couldn’t get my encrypted messages, I use Signal and iMessage.

The way that they hacked our phones is by using… pic.twitter.com/o0lOht7eUz

— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) October 31, 2024

Another commenter claimed to have had a similar experience to Sen. Vance, saying, “🚨I HAD A SIMILAR EXPERIENCE a while ago–my phone was hacked without it being SIM swapped, & the carrier’s security guy told me it’s indeed possible the hacker got in thru the carrier’s back end. We investigated & concluded that was likely what happened. PHONES AREN’T SECURE!!!”

Still another commenter noted that back doors into phones of the sort Vance spoke about are just intentional vulnerabilities that mean a device isn’t really secure. That commenter said, “Back doors are just intentional vulns. While it seems the telecom infrastructure (and not the phones per se) were hacked this underscores that systems are either secure or they’re not. There’s no middle ground. Once this is fully understood there are obvious changes we as a society need to make.”

Another commenter noted, on much another subject, that Vance acts far differently than other American political candidates, saying, “Based on this clip alone I am going to watch the entire interview. I have never seen a potential V.P. so unselfconsciously shoot the shit before.”