West Palm Beach, Florida — Former President Donald Trump celebrated his 78th birthday Friday evening at a packed Palm Beach Convention Center packed with supporters — including Republican Sen. Marco Rubio — as he continued his familiar lines of attack against President Biden on immigration and foreign policy.
“We had no wars under my leadership,” Trump declared. “Instead of a globalist warmonger in the White House, you had a peacemaker at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee seized the arrests this week eight Tajik nationals charged with links to ISIS. Before their arrest, the men crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without proper documentation and were issued notices to appear in immigration court, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said.
“Our country has never been in more danger than it is now. Just this week, ISIS arrested not one, not two, but eight suspected terrorists at the highest level of terrorism,” Trump said.
The birthday party was hosted by Club 47, a Palm Beach-based Trump fan club. Tickets for the party – which cost between $25 and $60 – sold out several days earlier.
Before his speech, Trump was given a six-tiered cake decorated with images of Trump and topped with a red fondant MAGA hat.
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It was a show of loyalty from Florida supporters and congressional allies to Trump about two weeks later he was found guilty in his “hush money” criminal trial in Manhattan on 34 felony counts of falsifying company records.
Rubio was also present on Friday – who was one of the persons mentioned as a possible running mate for Trump, sources previously told CBS News. Rubio gave a speech before Mr Trump took the stage, also attacking Mr Biden over the border.
“Terrorists, criminals and drugs are now coming into our country across the open border, and he invited them into the United States,” Rubio said.
Last week, however, the president issued an executive order making it easier for U.S. immigration officials to deport large numbers of migrants without processing their asylum claims.
This was Rubio’s first time appearing on the 2024 campaign trail with Trump. It also came two days after the senator – in an interview with Telemundo – defended Trump’s previous controversial comments in which he said that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
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In Wednesday’s interview, Rubio claimed that Trump’s comment was not really about race.
“That’s a saying he uses, but it has nothing to do with race because at the end of the day he’s talking about the country, not the population,” Rubio said. “The country is threatened by this influx of people, which we now know even includes criminals and terrorists.”
Trump could face legal barriers in selecting Rubio as his running mate as both claim residency in Florida. The Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution provides that, under the Electoral College, “the electors shall meet in their respective States, and by ballot vote two persons, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves.”
The birthday celebration comes as concerns exist among voters about the ages of Trump and Mr. Biden. In 2016, Mr Trump was the oldest person at the time to be elected president at the age of 70, a milestone surpassed by Mr Biden when he was inaugurated in January 2021 at the age of 78. elected, Mr Trump would surpass Mr Biden as the oldest person inaugurated as president.
Meanwhile, if re-elected, Mr Biden would be 82 years old at his inauguration, and 86 years old at the end of a second term.
According to recent CBS News, Trump appears to have an edge over Mr. Biden among Americans concerned about the cognitive skills of both poll. Only a third of voters think Biden has the cognitive capacity to serve, while half of voters think Trump does.
