US Politics
Trump and Rubio stumble on steps up to Air Force One
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President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio both stumbled as they boarded Air Force One on Sunday on their way to Camp David.
The stumble came after Trump gaggled with reporters in Hagerstown, Maryland, when he was asked if he would be willing to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to the protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles.
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“Depends on whether or not there’s an insurrection,” said Trump.
A reporter asked if he believes there is an insurrection taking place.
“No, no, but you have violent people,” he added. “And we’re not going to let them get away with it.”
Asked if he would deploy troops even without invoking the Insurrection Act, Trump said, “We’re going to have troops everywhere. We’re not going to let this happen to our country. We’re not going to let our country be torn apart like it was under Biden.”
Trump frequently mocked former President Joe Biden for the stumbles he took during his time in office. This time, it was Trump facing the mockery of social media users.
“I’m surprised he hasn’t replaced those stairs with a portable escalator of some kind,” RC Huffman said.
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“Time to get Old Man Trump fitted for a wheelchair,” said Ron Filipkowski.
Northwestern law lecturer Jason DeSanto added: “More beta energy.”
“When Joe Biden did stuff like this, Fox would play the clips over and over like it was as significant as the moon landing,” journalist Aaron Rupar noted.
“Cannot wait for all the books and wall-to-wall coverage,” political strategist Marco Frieri said.
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In the summer of 2023, Trump mocked Biden for falling at the Air Force graduation ceremony in Colorado.
He said it was “not inspiring” for the graduates to have seen the then-president take a tumble over a sandbag.
“I hope he wasn’t hurt. I hope he wasn’t hurt…You don’t want that,” said Trump during a campaign event in Iowa.
He then pointed back to when he tiptoed down a ramp in 2020 at the Army’s West Point graduation ceremony.
“The whole thing is crazy, you have got to be careful about that, you don’t want that even if you have to tiptoe down a ramp,” he said at the time.
He added that the ramp was “like an ice-skating rink.”
Following the 2024 election and Biden’s departure from the campaign in the summer of 2024, leaving then-Vice President Kamala Harris to pick up the mantle, there has been widespread reporting regarding Biden’s physical and mental struggles as he aged in office.
It has been reported that aides discussed the use of a wheelchair if Biden had won a second term in the White House.
