JD Vance plays with his kids as robot dog Spot stands guard at Mar-a-Lago
They had a robot dog day afternoon.
Vice President-elect JD Vance and his three young children were photographed playing along the lagoon at Mar-a-Lago Friday as a Secret Service robot security dog stood watch.
Vance, 40, relaxed in shorts and a polo shirt, led the troupe in dangling palm branches over a retaining wall into the water, which faces a bridge where journalists, photographers and fans of President-elect Donald Trump can glimpse the club that’s serving as a base for their White House transition.
Sons Ewan, 7, and Vivek, 4, and daughter Mirabel, 2, joined their father — with the children spotted each trying their own hand at dangling the branches into the water — as their mother Usha Vance, 38, and members of the Secret Service looked on with the walking robot known as Spot.
The photo op featuring the Ohio senator and his family likely was intentionally done for the benefit of the media, as the youngest incoming vice president since the 1950s offered the press soft subject matter sure to draw public interest.
Spot, the robot dog, is made by Boston Dynamics and has unspecified surveillance technology including sensors to detect hazards.
The robot at Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla., club bears the warning “DO NOT PET” written on its legs.
The Vance family took a break together as Trump continued to announce high-profile staffing decisions, including naming his campaign spokesman Steven Cheung to be his White House communications director and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to be interior secretary.
Trump has stunned the Washington establishment with his Cabinet picks, including nominating firebrand Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general Wednesday ahead of the looming release of a House ethics investigation report into alleged sexual misconduct. Gaetz promptly resigned from Congress.
The president-elect said he would nominate Fox News personality and veterans advocate Pete Hegseth, who has advocated firing “a ton” of generals, to be defense secretary, and former Democrats who supported his candidacy to top slots.
Trump on Thursday picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who challenged President Biden for the Democratic nomination this year before briefly running as an independent presidential candidate, to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, despite his scientifically heretical views on vaccines.
He also tapped former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), an outspoken opponent of US involvement in foreign wars and mass surveillance programs who was a Democratic primary presidential candidate in 2016, to be national intelligence director.
It’s unclear if all of Trump and Vance’s nominees can win confirmation by the Senate, where Republicans will hold a 53-47 majority — and the incoming president has demanded that the chamber’s leadership pave the way for recess appointments if need be to circumvent intraparty opposition.
Vance would break any tie votes in the Senate.
A Senate Republican source scoffed to The Post Thursday that “RFK has as much chance of getting confirmed by the Senate as he does of taking a vaccine shot.”
But Trump allies say the unconventional slate is a reflection of the voters’ will and may well get through.
“He’s demonstrating himself to be a reformer like no other president and modern era has been. These choices — between Tulsi, Pete and Matt and now Mr. Kennedy — are all inspired in that regard. There’s nothing comparable, in a good way, in prior Cabinets,” said close Trump ally Tom Fitton, president of the conservative Judicial Watch.
“These agencies are corrupt and dried-out husks in terms of ethics and public confidence. I think opposition from the Senate is overstated. I think they’re all likely to be confirmed or placed in office or other means, like recess appointments, but I think it’s going to be more straightforward than people now think.”
