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2025-06-27 06:27:19 [Social Good] Source: Exploration Information Network

Vice President Mike Pence joked off his blatant rule-breaking during a Thursday tour of NASA's Kennedy Space Center after the incident was caught on Sistercamera and became, of course, a meme.

SEE ALSO: Here's Mike Pence touching space flight hardware you're clearly not supposed to touch

Pence responded by shifting the blame to Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who keeps getting dragged into bad political humor situations, like that notorious awkward hug with Ivanka Trump.

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Once Rubio was brought into the fray, the senator tweeted his own cheesy dad joke.

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It didn't just stop there. No, Pence got really into it with his own Photoshop. This, in turn, prompted more jokes at the veep's expense.

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But it's not all a laughing matter -- that sign's up for a reason. NASA issued a statement Friday that was very kind to Pence and explained that the "do not touch sign" on the titanium forward bay cover for the Orion spacecraft is just a "day-to-day reminder."

NASA went on, "Procedures require the hardware to be cleaned before tiles are bonded to the spacecraft, so touching the surface is okay. Otherwise, the hardware would have had a protective cover over it like the thermal heat shield, which was nearby."

So Pence didn't mess anything up, but Twitter didn't let him off the hook like NASA did.