Vice President Mike Pence has taken an eight-car motorcade through a island which banned cars more than 100 years ago.
Mr Pence was on Mackinac Island in Michigan where cars – except for emergency vehicles, snowmobiles and government-owned service vehicles – have been banned since 1898.
Despite this, Donald Trump’s deputy defied the ban and brought several cars to the island, which sits in Lake Huron, between Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas.
Detroit Free Press reported it was the first-ever motorcade on the island, where residents usually walk or cycle.
Gerald Ford is the only person to have visited the island while a sitting president, but he traveled by horse.
Other presidents – including George HW Bush, Harry Truman and John F Kennedy – also visited the island before or after their time in the Oval Office, and also traveled by horse.
Mr Pence was on the island to speak at the Michigan Republican Party’s leadership conference, the first ever sitting vice president to address it in its 60 – year history, according to the Washington Examiner.
He was there on 21 September, the day before World Car Free Day.
Some American voters on social media were furious. One said: “An eight car motorcade on Mackinac Island. Breaking 121 year tradition of no motor vehicles on the island in order to make a show.
“Even President Gerald Ford rode in a horse drawn carriage. Is there no limit to the crass elitist raised middle finger to America? “
Another said: “You sir have lost my vote forever! Disrespecting the tradition of no motor vehicles on #MackinacIsland by bringing a entourage of an 8 vechile [sic] motorcade.”
But Phil Anderson from Minnesota, who was on the island over the weekend, told Detroit Free Press: “It’s not an issue at all.
” The wonderful president and the wonderful vice president have to get out and meet people and they can’t walk from the airport. “
Zach Gorchow, editor of Gongwer News Service in Michigan tweeted:” You got to love seeing Secret Service on a tandem bike on Mackinac Island. “
He later covered Mr Pence’s speech, which included a” crowd-pleasing line “that Karen Pence had told him not to bother coming home if he didn ‘ t have fudge, and mentioned that the couple had been to the island multiple times.
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