JD Vance’s lavish family vacation in the U.K., which began on Aug. 8, is not exactly going as planned.
While estate-hopping through England and Scotland, the vice president has been yelled at by angry protesters to “go home,” trolled with blown-up images of the unflattering “bald baby” meme, and prevented from entering a historic pub after a staff mutiny.
The public displays of disapproval against Vance are especially ironic, given that the vice president criticized the U.K. for restricting freedom of speech in February at the Munich Security Conference.
His remarks were met with dead silence at the event, and then later denounced by European leaders. On Aug. 13 — coinciding with Vance’s vacation — Trump released a report stating that free speech and human rights in the U.K. had “worsened” over the past year.
But the staff at The Bull, a renowned 16th-century pub in Charlbury, Oxfordshire, would argue differently. Once they learned that Vance had a reservation, they reportedly refused to show up to work if management allowed the vice president to enter, The Daily Beast reported.
It’s worth noting that Kamala Harris enjoyed a dinner there without incident just a few weeks earlier, to celebrate the July wedding of Steve Jobs’ daughter Eve to British Olympic equestrian Harry Charles.
Even in tiny English villages, Vance cannot escape the “bald baby” meme that went viral in March. A van was spotted cruising the leafy lanes of The Cotswolds displaying the digitally enlarged bald head of Vance on all four sides. The British activist group Everyone Hates Elon organized the savage trolling, which included signs and billboards plastered all around the area where he stayed.
“NEVER lose your faith in people because HUNDREDS just paid to welcome JD Vance to the UK with this MASSIVE meme of him looking like a complete and utter pillock. Right where he’s on holidays,” they wrote on Instagram.
Donald Trump and the group’s namesake, Elon Musk, have received similar treatment in the past.
Vance and his family stayed in a country estate in Dean that reportedly cost $11,000 per week, and his elaborate 20-car motorcade forced the village into “lockdown,” prompting protests and calls for him to “go home,” according to GlouchesterLive. Now he’s on the second leg of his trip in Scotland, paying even higher prices for more extravagant estates.
“Remember when Republicans were pissed about Kamala wearing $800 earrings,” wrote @aramnotagoat on X.
“It’s ridiculously OTT,” stated a reader of BBC Scotland on X, while another asked the burning question: “Is the American taxpayer on the hook for this?”
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