You are here

  • Home
  • Trump marks his 78th birthday by tearing into 81-year-old Biden as frail and confused

Trump marks his 78th birthday by tearing into 81-year-old Biden as frail and confused

Trump marks his 78th birthday by tearing into 81-year-old Biden as frail and confused
1 / 3
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a rally and celebration of his birthday at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, in West Palm Beach, Florida, on June 14, 2024. (REUTERS)
Short Url

https://arab.news/rzp9q

Updated 15 June 2024
AP
Follow

Trump marks his 78th birthday by tearing into 81-year-old Biden as frail and confused

Trump marks his 78th birthday by tearing into 81-year-old Biden as frail and confused
  • Even after becoming the first former president to have been convicted of a felony, Trump has tightened his grip on much of his party’s base and elected officials
Updated 15 June 2024
AP
Follow

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida: Donald Trump marked his 78th birthday on Friday night by addressing a fawning crowd in Florida and repeatedly dismissing his opponent in November’s election, 81-year-old President Joe Biden, as too frail to handle a second term.

“Our country is being destroyed by incompetent people,” said Trump, who devoted large swathes of a jovial speech to poking fun at Biden. “All presidents should have aptitude tests.”
The former president addressed “Club 47” fan club members at a convention center in West Palm Beach, a short drive from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence. As part of the festivities, organizers brought out a towering, multi-layered cake as audience members tossed red and blue balloons.
Setting on a gold-colored base, the cake featured separate tiers that included a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap and the Club 47 logo, an American flag, the phrase “Born in the USA on Flag Day,” a depiction of Trump golfing and the Oval Office fitted gold frames common in many Trump properties as well as Trump and Republican logos.
When Trump took the stage, the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” and chanted “USA! USA!” The layer cake was just for show. But backstage there was a sheet cake with vanilla icing and a gold hue that was served to some members of the former president’s campaign staff.

The event in Trump’s adopted home state sold out of 5,000 tickets at about $35 apiece, with closer spots to the stage costing $60, according to Club 47 President Larry Snowden.
“This is the biggest birthday party I’ve ever had by far,” Trump said.
The former president elicited strong cheers by listing his now-familiar campaign plans, including discussing immigration in menacing terms and pledging to reduce regulations, scrap environmental protections to stimulate domestic energy production and cut taxes.
Despite so often scoffing at Biden, even declaring that the president often “doesn’t know where the hell he is,” Trump also offered a seemingly contradictory message to his own supporters. He endorsed early voting, casting ballots by mail and also on Election Day in person, only to later note: “I actually tell our people, we don’t need your vote. We’ve got so many votes.”
Before Trump took the stage, Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Byron Donalds, both Florida Republicans, helped warm up the crowd, gushing about Trump and his prospects for winning back the White House.
It was yet another strong show of support for Trump and came a day after Republicans in Congress sang their own rendition of “Happy Birthday” and presented the former president with a cake and gifts during a Thursday visit to Capitol Hill — displaying remarkable loyalty for a former president who was shunned by many of the same lawmakers after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Even after becoming the first former president to have been convicted of a felony, Trump has tightened his grip on much of his party’s base and elected officials. Next month, he is scheduled to accept his party’s presidential nomination for the third time — despite facing sentencing in his hush money case on July 11.
Trump referenced his conviction on 34 felony counts on Friday, declaring, “In the end, they’re not after me. They’re after you and I just happened to be standing in their way.”
Mary Lou and Sue Reardon both came to the event from the Villages near Ocala, about 240 miles (386 kilometers) northwest of West Palm Beach. Both were wearing US flag shirts and matching “Birthday” headbands with candles.
“We just feel like he’s our last hope,” Sue Reardon said of Trump.
Biden will turn 82 shortly after Election Day in November. His campaign marked Trump’s birthday by compiling a listing of “78 of Trump’s historic… ‘accomplishments,’” with links to media coverage of policy proposals including “cutting Social Security and Medicare,” Trump’s presidency during GOP losses in the US House and Senate and several references to his legal cases.
“On behalf of America, our early gift for your 79th: Making sure you are never President again,” Biden campaign spokesperson James Singer added to the birthday wishes.
By contrast, there was no hint of GOP disunity when Trump was in Washington to meet with House and Senate Republicans on Thursday, in his first visit to Capitol Hill since the riot, which was carried out by Trump supporters seeking to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden.
Among those attending was Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who endorsed Trump earlier this year despite not having spoken since 2020.
Club 47 is based in Palm Beach County and says on its website that the club’s goal is to keep Trump’s supporters “in our area connected and engaged.” Trump most recently spoke to the club in October, days after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
Lydia Maldonado, a local Hispanic activist, said Friday’s event is unique compared to any rally nationwide with the former president and that Trump feels comfortable and familiar with this crowd since it’s his hometown.
“The purpose of having this event is pretty much to let him know how much the community here loves him and how much the community supports him,” Maldonado said.
 

Topics: 2024 US Elections Donald Trump

Related

Cheers, cake and a fist-bump from GOP as Trump returns to Capitol Hill in a first since Jan. 6 riot
World
Cheers, cake and a fist-bump from GOP as Trump returns to Capitol Hill in a first since Jan. 6 riot
Trump loyalists proud to support ‘felon’ at Las Vegas rally
World
Trump loyalists proud to support ‘felon’ at Las Vegas rally

Mexico’s first judicial elections stir controversy and confusion among voters

Updated 1 min ago
Follow

Mexico’s first judicial elections stir controversy and confusion among voters

Mexico’s first judicial elections stir controversy and confusion among voters
Updated 1 min ago
MEXICO CITY: Mexico is holding its first ever judicial elections on Sunday, stirring controversy and sowing confusion among voters still struggling to understand a process set to transform the country’s court system.
Mexico’s ruling party, Morena, overhauled the court system late last year, fueling protests and criticism that the reform is an attempt by those in power to seize on their political popularity to gain control of the branch of government until now out of their reach.
“It’s an effort to control the court system, which has been a sort of thorn in the side” of those in power, said Laurence Patin, director of the legal organization Juicio Justo in Mexico. “But it’s a counter-balance, which exists in every healthy democracy.”
Now, instead of judges being appointed on a system of merit and experience, Mexican voters will choose between some 7,700 candidates vying for more than 2,600 judicial positions.
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum and party allies have said the elections are a way to purge the court system of corruption in a country that has long faced high levels of impunity. Critics say the vote could damage democracy and open the judicial system up further to organized crime and other corrupt actors hoping to get a grip on power.
That process has only grown more chaotic in the run-up to the vote.
Civil society organizations like Defensorxs have raised red flags about a range of candidates running for election, including lawyers who represented some of Mexico’s most feared cartel leaders and local officials who were forced to resign from their positions due to corruption scandals.
Also among those putting themselves forward are ex-convicts imprisoned for years for drug-trafficking to the United States and a slate of candidates with ties to a religious group whose spiritual leader is behind bars in California after pleading guilty to sexually abusing minors.
At the same time, voters have been plagued by confusion over a voting process that Patin warned has been hastily thrown together. Voters often have to choose from sometimes more than a hundred candidates who are not permitted to clearly voice their party affiliation or carry out widespread campaigning.
As a result, many Mexicans say they’re going into the vote blind. Mexico’s electoral authority has investigated voter guides being handed out across the country, in what critics say is a blatant move by political parties to stack the vote in their favor.
“Political parties weren’t just going to sit with their arms crossed,” Patin said.
Miguel Garcia, a 78-year-old former construction worker, stood in front of the country’s Supreme Court on Friday peering at a set of posters, voter guides with the faces and numbers of candidates.
He was fiercely scribbling down their names on a small scrap of paper and said that he had traveled across Mexico City to try to inform himself ahead of the vote, but he couldn’t find any information other than outside the courthouse.
“In the neighborhood where I live, there’s no information for us,” he said. “I’m confused, because they’re telling us to go out and vote but we don’t know who to vote for.”

Bridge collapse causes train to derail in Russia’s Bryansk region, killing at least 7 people

Bridge collapse causes train to derail in Russia’s Bryansk region, killing at least 7 people
Updated 01 June 2025
AP
Follow

Bridge collapse causes train to derail in Russia’s Bryansk region, killing at least 7 people

Bridge collapse causes train to derail in Russia’s Bryansk region, killing at least 7 people
  • Moscow Railways blamed the bridge collapse on “illegal interference”
  • The bridge is in Russia’s Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine
Updated 01 June 2025
AP

MOSCOW: A passenger train derailed in western Russia late Saturday after a bridge collapsed because of what local officials described as “illegal interference,” killing at least seven people and injuring 30.
The bridge in Russia’s Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, was damaged “as a result of illegal interference in transport operations,” Moscow Railways said in a statement, without elaborating.
Russia’s federal road transportation agency, Rosavtodor, said the destroyed bridge passed above the railway tracks where the train was traveling.
Photos posted by government agencies from the scene appeared to show passenger cars from the train ripped apart and lying amid fallen concrete from the collapsed bridge. Other footage on social media appeared to be taken from inside other vehicles that narrowly avoided driving onto the bridge before it collapsed.
Bryansk regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said emergency services and government officials were working at the scene. He said seven people died and two children were among the 30 injured.
“Everything is being done to provide all necessary assistance to the victims,” he said. Russian officials have not said who is responsible for Saturday’s incident, but in the past some officials have accused pro-Ukrainian saboteurs of attacking Russia’s railway infrastructure. The details surrounding such incidents, however, are limited and cannot be independently verified.
Ukrainian media outlets reported in December 2023 that Kyiv’s top spy agency had successfully carried out two explosions on a railroad line in Siberia that serves as a key conduit for trade between Russia and China. Ukraine’s security services did not comment on the reports.
Russian Railways confirmed one of the explosions described by Ukrainian media, but did not say what had caused it. There was no comment from Russian authorities on a second explosion.

Topics: Ukraine Russia Bryansk

Related

Kremlin expects Russia and Ukraine to discuss ceasefire conditions in Istanbul video
World
Kremlin expects Russia and Ukraine to discuss ceasefire conditions in Istanbul
Ukraine says it’s ready to restart talks with Russia but needs clarity on Kremlin’s terms
World
Ukraine says it’s ready to restart talks with Russia but needs clarity on Kremlin’s terms

UK faces choice next week between health and other spending, IFS think tank warns

UK faces choice next week between health and other spending, IFS think tank warns
Updated 01 June 2025
Reuters
Follow

UK faces choice next week between health and other spending, IFS think tank warns

UK faces choice next week between health and other spending, IFS think tank warns
  • The non-partisan IFS said this spending review could prove to be “one of the most significant domestic policy events” for the current Labour government
Updated 01 June 2025
Reuters

LONDON: British finance minister Rachel Reeves’ key decision in next week’s multi-year spending review will be how much to spend on health care versus other public services, the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank said on Sunday.
Reeves is due to set out day-to-day spending limits for other government departments on June 11 which will run through to the end of March 2029 — almost until the end of the Labour government’s expected term in office.
Britain has held periodic government spending reviews since 1998, but this is the first since 2015 to cover multiple years, other than one in 2021 focused on the COVID pandemic.
The non-partisan IFS said this spending review could prove to be “one of the most significant domestic policy events” for the current Labour government.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s announcement in February that defense spending would reach 2.5 percent of national income by 2027 had already used the room for further growth in public investment created in Reeves’ October budget, it said.
“Simultaneously prioritising additional investments in public services, net zero and growth-friendly areas ... will be impossible,” said Bee Boileau, a research economist at the IFS.
Non-investment public spending is intended to rise by 1.2 percent a year on top of inflation between 2026-27 and 2028-29, according to budget plans which Reeves set out in October — half the pace of spending growth in the current and previous financial year.
The IFS sees no scope for this to be topped up, as Reeves’ budget rules leave almost no room for extra borrowing and tax rises are now limited to her annual budget statement.
This forces Reeves and Starmer to choose between the demands of the public health care system — plagued by long waiting times and a slump in productivity since the COVID-19 pandemic — and other stretched areas.
In past spending reviews, annual health care spending has typically risen 2 percentage points faster than total spending.
If that happened this time — equivalent to an annual increase of 3.4 percent — spending in other departments would have to fall by 1 percent a year in real terms, the IFS forecast.
Raising health care spending at roughly the same pace as other areas — a 1.2 percent rise — would only just keep pace with an aging population and not allow any reversal of recent years’ deterioration in service quality, the IFS said.
Spending cuts could be achieved by scaling back services provided by the state, reducing public-sector employment or real-terms cuts in public-sector pay, it added.
But it warned the government needed to be specific about how it planned to make cuts, or risk financial markets losing confidence in its ability to keep borrowing under control.
The review does not cover spending on pensions or other benefits, which the government is tackling separately.

Topics: United Kingdom spending think tank labour government

Related

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves poses with the red budget box outside her office on Downing Street in London
World
UK’s Labour government hikes taxes in first budget

Britain plans at least six new weapons factories in defense review

Britain plans at least six new weapons factories in defense review
Updated 01 June 2025
Reuters
Follow

Britain plans at least six new weapons factories in defense review

Britain plans at least six new weapons factories in defense review
  • The 1.5 billion-pound ($2.0 billion) investment will be included in the Strategic Defense Review, a 10-year plan for military equipment and services
Updated 01 June 2025
Reuters

MANCHESTER, England: Britain will build at least six new factories producing weapons and explosives as part of a major review of its defense capabilities, the government said on Saturday.
The 1.5 billion-pound ($2.0 billion) investment will be included in the Strategic Defense Review, a 10-year plan for military equipment and services. The SDR is expected to be published on Monday.
The Ministry of Defense added that it planned to procure up to 7,000 long-range weapons built in Britain. Together, the measures announced on Saturday will create around 1,800 jobs, the MoD said.
“The hard-fought lessons from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine show a military is only as strong as the industry that stands behind them,” Defense Secretary John Healey said in a statement.
“We are strengthening the UK’s industrial base to better deter our adversaries and make the UK secure at home and strong abroad.”
The extra investment will mean Britain will spend around 6 billion pounds on munitions in the current parliament, the MoD said.
Earlier on Saturday, the MoD said it would spend an extra 1.5 billion pounds to tackle the poor state of housing for the country’s armed forces.

Topics: Britain Strategic Defense Review

Related

‘Deeply dangerous’ Islamophobia being promoted in UK: Baroness Warsi
World
‘Deeply dangerous’ Islamophobia being promoted in UK: Baroness Warsi
UK ban on disposable vapes goes into effect
World
UK ban on disposable vapes goes into effect

Paris Holocaust memorial, synagogues hit with paint

Paris Holocaust memorial, synagogues hit with paint
Updated 31 May 2025
AFP
Follow

Paris Holocaust memorial, synagogues hit with paint

Paris Holocaust memorial, synagogues hit with paint
  • “I am deeply disgusted by these heinous acts targeting the Jewish community,” Retailleau said
  • No arrests have been made
Updated 31 May 2025
AFP

PARIS: France’s Holocaust memorial, two synagogues and a restaurant in central Paris were vandalized with green paint overnight, according to police sources on Saturday, prompting condemnation from government and city officials.

“I am deeply disgusted by these heinous acts targeting the Jewish community,” French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said on X.

No arrests have been made.

Retailleau last week called for “visible and dissuasive” security measures at Jewish-linked sites amid concerns over possible anti-Semitic acts.

In a separate message seen by AFP, the interior minister on Friday had again ordered heightened surveillance ahead of the upcoming Jewish Shavuot holiday.

The French Jewish community, one of the largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials since the Gaza war erupted on October 7, 2023.

“Anti-Semitic acts account for more than 60 percent of anti-religious acts, and the Jewish community is particularly vulnerable,” Retailleau said in the message seen by AFP.

Paris authorities would be lodging a complaint over the paint incident, said the city’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo.

“I condemn these acts of intimidation in the strongest possible terms. Anti-Semitism has no place in our city or in our Republic,” she said.

In May 2024, red hand graffiti was painted beneath the wall at the memorial in central Paris honoring individuals who saved Jews from persecution during the 1940-44 Nazi occupation of France.

Topics: France Paris Holocaust memorial Bruno Retailleau

Related

Neo-Nazis plotted terrorist attacks on UK mosques and synagogues
World
Neo-Nazis plotted terrorist attacks on UK mosques and synagogues
Man seriously injured in attack at Berlin Holocaust memorial
World
Man seriously injured in attack at Berlin Holocaust memorial

Latest updates

Mexico’s first judicial elections stir controversy and confusion among voters
Mexico’s first judicial elections stir controversy and confusion among voters
Gaza rescuers say Israeli gunfire kills 10, wounds over 100 near aid
Gaza rescuers say Israeli gunfire kills 10, wounds over 100 near aid
Messi’s brilliance continues with two goals, two assists in Inter Miami’s 5-1 win over Columbus Crew
Messi’s brilliance continues with two goals, two assists in Inter Miami’s 5-1 win over Columbus Crew
Indiana Pacers beat New York Knicks 125-108 in Game 6 to reach NBA Finals
Indiana Pacers beat New York Knicks 125-108 in Game 6 to reach NBA Finals
Trump pulls Musk ally’s NASA nomination, will announce replacement
Trump pulls Musk ally’s NASA nomination, will announce replacement

Search form

Print Edition
Read pdf version Subscribe now
© 2025 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.