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Hunter Biden accuses George Clooney of undermining father in 2024 presidential election

Hunter Biden accuses George Clooney of undermining father in 2024 presidential election

Al Arabiya5 days ago
Former President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, isn't hiding his feelings about actor and Democratic Party donor George Clooney's decision to call on the elder Biden to abandon his 2024 reelection bid. In a rare online interview, Hunter Biden used a string of expletives to describe Clooney when discussing the actor with Andrew Gallagher of Channel 5.
Clooney supported Democrat Joe Biden's bid for a second term and even headlined a record-setting fundraiser for the then-president. But the actor changed his stance after Biden turned in a disastrous debate performance against Republican Donald Trump in June 2024 and added his voice to mounting calls for the then-81-year-old president to leave the race. Clooney made his feelings known in an opinion piece in The New York Times. Biden ended up leaving the race a few weeks later and endorsed his vice president Kamala Harris. She lost to Trump.
In the lengthy and wide-ranging interview, Hunter Biden questioned why anyone should listen to Clooney and said the Ocean's Eleven actor had no right to undermine his father. 'What right do you have to step on a man who's given 52 years of his f***ing life to the services of this country and decide that you, George Clooney, are going to take out basically a full page ad in the f***ing New York Times to undermine the president?' Hunter Biden said before he trailed off to talk about how Republicans are more unified than Democrats. Joe Biden served 36 years in the US Senate and eight years as Barack Obama's vice president before he was elected president in 2020.
Los Angeles-based representatives for Clooney did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Tuesday.
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Trump once decried the idea of presidential vacations. His Scotland trip is built around golf
Trump once decried the idea of presidential vacations. His Scotland trip is built around golf

Al Arabiya

time4 hours ago

  • Al Arabiya

Trump once decried the idea of presidential vacations. His Scotland trip is built around golf

During sweaty summer months Abraham Lincoln often decamped about 3 miles (5 kilometers) north of the White House to the Soldiers Home, a presidential retreat of cottages and parkland in what today is the Petworth section of northwest Washington. Ulysses S. Grant sometimes summered at his family's cottage in Long Branch, New Jersey, even occasionally driving teams of horses on the beach. Ronald Reagan once said he 'did some of my best thinking' at his Rancho Del Cielo retreat outside Santa Barbara, California. Donald Trump's getaway is taking him considerably farther from the nation's capital to the coast of Scotland. The White House isn't calling Trump's five-day midsummer jaunt a vacation but rather a working trip where the Republican president might hold a news conference and sit for interviews with US and British media outlets. Trump was also talking trade in separate meetings with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Trump is staying at his properties near Turnberry and Aberdeen where his family owns two golf courses and is opening a third on Aug. 13. Trump played golf over the weekend at Turnberry and is helping cut the ribbon on the new course on Tuesday. He's not the first president to play in Scotland: Dwight D. Eisenhower played at Turnberry in 1959, more than a half century before Trump bought it after meeting with French President Charles de Gaulle in Paris. But none of Trump's predecessors has constructed a foreign itinerary around promoting vacation sites his family owns and is actively expanding. It lays bare how Trump has leveraged his second term to pad his family's profits in a variety of ways including overseas development deals and promoting cryptocurrencies despite growing questions about ethics concerns. 'You have to look at this as yet another attempt by Donald Trump to monetize his presidency,' said Leonard Steinhorn, who teaches political communication and courses on American culture and the modern presidency at American University. 'In this case using the trip as a PR opportunity to promote his golf courses.' Presidents typically vacation in the US. Franklin D. Roosevelt went to the Bahamas, often for the excellent fishing, five times between 1933 and 1940. He visited Canada's Campobello Island in New Brunswick, where he had vacationed as a child in 1933, 1936 and 1939. Reagan spent Easter 1982 on vacation in Barbados after meeting with Caribbean leaders and warning of a Marxist threat that could spread throughout the region from nearby Grenada. Presidents also never fully go on vacation. They travel with a large entourage of aides, receive intelligence briefings, take calls and otherwise work away from Washington. Kicking back in the United States though has long been the norm. Harry S. Truman helped make Key West, Florida, a tourist hot spot with his Little White House cottage there. Several presidents including James Buchanan and Benjamin Harrison visited the Victorian architecture in Cape May, New Jersey. More recently Bill Clinton and Barack Obama boosted tourism on Massachusetts' Martha's Vineyard, while Trump has buoyed Palm Beach, Florida, with frequent trips to his Mar-a-Lago estate. But any tourist lift Trump gets from his Scottish visit is likely to most benefit his family. Every president is forced to weigh politics versus fun on vacation, said Jeffrey Engel, David Gergen Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who added that Trump is demonstrating his priorities. 'When he thinks about how he wants to spend his free time, A. playing golf, B. visiting places where he has investments, and C. enhancing those investments, that was not the priority for previous presidents but it is his vacation time,' Engel said. It's even a departure from Trump's first term when he found ways to squeeze in visits to his properties while on trips more focused on work. Trump stopped at his resort in Hawaii to thank staff members after visiting the memorial site at Pearl Harbor and before embarking on an Asia trip in November 2017. He played golf at Turnberry in 2018 before meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Finland. Trump once decried the idea of taking vacations as president. 'Don't take vacations. What's the point? If you're not enjoying your work, you're in the wrong job,' Trump wrote in his 2004 book 'Think Like a Billionaire.' During his presidential campaign in 2015, he pledged to rarely leave the White House. Even as recently as a speech at a summit on artificial intelligence in Washington on Wednesday, Trump derided his predecessor for flying long distances for golf–something he's now doing. 'They talked about the carbon footprint and then Obama hops onto a 747 Air Force One and flies to Hawaii to play a round of golf and comes back,' he said. Presidential vacations and any overseas trips were once taboo. Trump isn't the first president not wanting to publicize taking time off. George Washington was criticized for embarking on a New England tour to promote the presidency. Some took issue with his successor John Adams for leaving the then-capital of Philadelphia in 1797 for a long visit to his family's farm in Quincy, Massachusetts. James Madison left Washington for months after the War of 1812. Teddy Roosevelt helped pioneer the modern presidential vacation in 1902 by chartering a special train and directing key staff members to rent houses near Sagamore Hill, his home in Oyster Bay, New York, according to the White House Historical Association. Four years later, Roosevelt upended tradition again, this time by becoming the first president to leave the country while in office. The New York Times noted that Roosevelt's 30-day trip by yacht and battleship to tour construction of the Panama Canal 'will violate the traditions of the United States for 117 years by taking its President outside the jurisdiction of the Government at Washington.' In the decades since where presidents opted to vacation even outside the US has become part of their political personas. In addition to New Jersey, Grant relaxed on Martha's Vineyard. Calvin Coolidge spent the 1928 Christmas holidays at Sapelo Island, Georgia. Lyndon B. Johnson had his Texas White House, a Hill Country ranch. Eisenhower vacationed in Newport, Rhode Island. John F. Kennedy went to Palm Springs, California, and his family's compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, among other places. Richard Nixon had the Southern White House on Key Biscayne, Florida, while Joe Biden traveled frequently to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, while also visiting Nantucket, Massachusetts, and St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands. George H.W. Bush was a frequent visitor to his family's property in Kennebunkport, Maine, and didn't let the start of the Gulf War in 1991 detour him from a monthlong vacation there. His son George W. Bush opted for his ranch in Crawford, Texas, rather than a more posh destination. Presidential visits help tourism in some places more than others, but Engel said that for some Americans 'if the president of the Untied States goes some place you want to go to the same place.' He noted that visitors emulating presidential vacations are out to show that 'you're either as cool as he or she, that you understand the same values as he or she, or heck maybe you'll bump into he or she.'

Pakistan says wants ‘strongest relations' with US despite iron-clad partnership with China
Pakistan says wants ‘strongest relations' with US despite iron-clad partnership with China

Arab News

time8 hours ago

  • Arab News

Pakistan says wants ‘strongest relations' with US despite iron-clad partnership with China

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said on Sunday Islamabad wished for 'strongest relations' with the United States (US) despite enjoying an iron-clad partnership with Washington's rival, Beijing. Pakistan maintains a tricky balance in its relations with China and the US. While aligned with the US for military cooperation and counter-terrorism efforts, Islamabad has strengthened economic ties with Beijing through initiatives like the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Relations between Washington and Beijing have been strained over the past several years as both world powers compete for global influence in several domains. The US and China have disagreements over several issues such as trade, Taiwan, the South China Sea and China's Belt and Road Initiative. 'Our government and we have emphasized and will continue to emphasize that our relations and iron-clad brother partnership with China, our relations [with the US] should not be looked at through that lens,' Dar, speaking to the Pakistani community in New York, said during a televised address. 'We want strongest relations with the United States of America as well.' Dar pointed out that Islamabad, under the previous government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif from 2022-2023, had made it clear to Washington that this was its official policy. However, the Pakistani foreign minister said the Joe Biden administration did not engage with Islamabad. 'I'm glad that they [Trump administration] have actively engaged themselves with us,' Dar said. Dar met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington on Friday in a face-to-face meeting, during which the American official recognized Pakistan's 'constructive role' for peace in the region and worldwide. The Pakistani deputy prime minister pointed out that this was the first time in nine years that the foreign ministers of the US and Pakistan had met each other. 'I would say the meeting was very cordial, we touched all the regional and global issues. We touched our bilateral issues,' he said. Dar is currently on an eight-day visit to the US till July 28, where he kept a busy schedule in New York and chaired several high-profile United Nations Security Council meetings under Pakistan's rotating presidency this month.

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