Dem
51
GOP
49
Donald Trump turned 78 on Friday. We didn't write "Donald Trump celebrated his 78th birthday on Friday" because he definitely didn't celebrate it. In fact, he tried to hide it, but every reporter in the country knows his birthday is on his Wikipedia page. Besides, it is on Flag Day. We're actually surprised that he hasn't claimed that Flag Day was set to June 14th to honor his birthday. We bet Martha-Ann Alito would back him up on that.
The reason Trump didn't want to celebrate his birthday is because he didn't want every paper in the country to run a story headlined "Trump is now 78, and if elected would become the oldest president in American history by the end of his term." But, of course, it happened anyway—for example, here. Although Trump harps on Joe Biden's age, our staff chronologer has calculated that Biden is only 3½ years older than Trump. The more people that know this, the weaker "Biden's old" becomes as a campaign theme. Put another way, a pretty good answer to "He's 81!" is "Yeah, and the other guy's 78."
At a rally last week in Las Vegas, Trump's overenthusiastic supporters sang "Happy Birthday" to him, albeit a couple of days early. He was quite upset at them doing this. He told them: "You know, there's a certain point at which you don't want to hear 'Happy Birthday.' You just want to pretend the day doesn't exist." This is especially true when having people wish you a happy 78th birthday reminds people of your age and actually increases the chances of your going to prison. Consequently, Trump tries to downplay his age and upplay (?) Biden's age. Biden's strategy is simple: We're both old but only one of us has gained some wisdom over the years.
When Trump was younger, his birthday bash was a big, newsworthy event. In 1988, when he turned 42, he threw a swinging party at one of his casinos, before it went belly up. He played videos of Liza Minnelli and Billy Crystal wishing him a happy birthday. Then-president Ronald Reagan even sent him a telegram. For our younger readers, a telegram is like a text message sent in Morse code, but you had to go tell a company called Western Union to do it for you. You couldn't do it on your own. For birthday 44, Dolly Parton and Elton John sent videos. For number 50, Eartha Kitt sang for him and there was an ice sculpture of his then-wife, Marla Maples, as a mermaid.
Trump got various presents for his birthday, but the biggest one was intangible. It was the exceedingly grudging handshake he got from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who openly despises the former president. But McConnell felt that he had to shake Trump's hand for 1/100 sec. so it could be photographed. This signaled the unconditional surrender of the Republican Party to Trump, kinda like what Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu did on the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay on Sep. 2, 1945, except without a written document this time. But make no mistake, the surrender was just as valid. Although McConnell will not be leader of the Republican caucus come Jan. 3, 2025, he knows the Senate Johns well, and hopes either Cornyn or Thune becomes majority leader. (V)