Secret Service agents assigned to Vice President JD Vance have grown so frustrated with his family’s last-minute, resource-intensive travel demands — including a planned Marine Two helicopter ride to deliver his young son to a golf lesson — that they have created mocking custom coins and stickers reading “Bobcat OTR Survivors Club,” according to MS NOW.
VANCE’S SECRET SERVICE TEAM IS FED UP
Secret Service agents protecting Vice President JD Vance were already grumbling when they received their latest assignment: ready Marine Two — the vice presidential helicopter — to fly Vance’s elementary school-aged son to his golf lesson at Joint Base Andrews.
The trip was ultimately cancelled due to severe thunderstorms. But the damage to morale was already done, according to MS NOW, which spoke to multiple current and former agents and administration officials on condition of anonymity.
The helicopter golf run was no isolated incident. Agents told MS NOW that Vance and second lady Usha Vance routinely place last-minute travel demands on their security detail — known internally as “off the record” or OTR movements — forcing agents to cancel days off, abandon existing plans and scramble new security arrangements at short notice. The Vances also recently required multiple last-minute chopper trips to the Middleburg, Virginia area to search for a family home.
“They change everything,” one person told MS NOW. “They don’t stick to their schedules, and that costs shit-tons of taxpayer money.” Another added: “He thinks he can still move around like a U.S. Senator.”
Operating Marine Two costs taxpayers between $16,000 and $24,600 per hour, according to 2022 Pentagon budget estimates. Former and current Secret Service supervisors told MS NOW that no prior vice president had requested a government helicopter for a child’s local activity, with previous administrations using SUVs for such trips instead. “That is RIDICULOUS,” one person with knowledge of the planned golf trip told MS NOW. “Pence and Harris never pulled anything like that.”
The frustration has boiled over into dark humour. Agents have designed and distributed custom coins and stickers featuring Vance’s Secret Service code name “Bobcat,” reading “Bobcat OTR Survivors Club” with the motto: “Advance. OTR. Repeat.” — mocking the cycle of preparation, cancellation and last-minute chaos they say has defined the assignment.
A second person summarised the agents’ broader grievance plainly: the Vance family’s expectations that taxpayers should accommodate their children’s schedules is “way more excessive than Pence and Harris. It’s all the time.”
NEWS NOW:
