G7 summit 2021: Biden, 78, calls the Royal Air Force the ‘RFA’ in new gaffe

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Joe Biden called the Royal Air Force the ‘RFA’ while addressing US military personnel at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk during his first-ever speech as US President on British soil last night.

The gaffe came after the 78-year-old President declared that the Anglo-American alliance forged during World War Two was the ‘strongest military and political alliance in the history of the world’. 

Mr Biden told US troops: ‘These partnerships have been hardened in the fire of war. Generations of Americans and service members fought them. Like the original Bloody Hundredth, and those RFA pilots.’

He had already been admonished by his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, who told him to ‘pay attention’ as the President stared at troops positioned behind the stage at the military base.

The US commander-in-chief, the oldest ever occupant of the White House, has been the subject of repeated questions about his mental faculties and fitness to be in charge of the world’s largest nuclear arsenal. 

He is known to make mistakes, have mix-ups or even digress during speeches or while answering questions.

And British pro-Brexit politicians today called him ‘senile’ in a feud over White House accusations that Boris Johnson has ‘inflamed’ tensions in Northern Ireland in a dispute with the EU over trade arrangements. 

In March, the President was seen falling up the stairs three times while boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews before finally reaching the top of the plane and saluting. White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre later claimed that he had been blown over by the wind. 

Mr Biden has also referred to his vice-president Kamala Harris as ‘President Harris’, forgotten the name of his Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and confused his granddaughter with his late son, Beau.

But the latest blunder could raise concerns about the mental agility of Mr Biden, who is using the G7 Summit in Cornwall to tackle issues including the pandemic, climate change and the threats to international stability posed by China and Russia.

Senior Tories have even branded the Democrat ‘senile’ after he chose to rebuke Britain for ‘inflaming tensions’ over the Northern Ireland Brexit Protocol in London’s ‘sausage war’ bust-up with the EU. 

During his speech at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, Mr Biden had tough talk for Vladimir Putin when he said: ‘I’m meeting with Mr Putin to let him know what I want him to know,’ drawing cheers from the Air Force personnel.

He also told the crowd of American troops that ‘global warming’ is the biggest threat to the US, teared up as he paid tribute to his late veteran son Beau and boasted that ‘America is back’.

At the start of his speech he told the standing troops to sit by saying ‘at ease’, then said: ‘I keep forgetting I am president’.   

The president has trashed talked Putin before, calling him a ‘killer with no soul,’ and has made it clear he intends to take Putin to task for Moscow’s interference in US elections, its treatment of dissidents and the series of ransomware attacks carried out by Russian hackers. 

At their arrival on Wednesday night, the Bidens received a warm welcome at the base, garnering several rounds of applause. They spoke outdoors as the sun set behind them. Both Bidens wore face masks but took them off to speak. 

President Biden also mentioned his late son Beau, a major in the Delaware Army National Guard. He teared up as he thanked military personnel the Royal Air Force Mildenhall for their service.

‘I wish my major was here to thank you as well,’ he said referencing his late son, who died of brain cancer in 2015.  ‘You’re the best of our country,’ he added.

He also outlined the goals of his trip and the message he wanted to give to world: ‘The United States is back and the democracies of the world are standing together to face the toughest challenges.’

It marked the start of his first foreign trip as president; eight days in Europe where he will meet Boris Johnson and his new wife Carrie, the rest of the G7 leaders, The Queen, NATO officials and, finally, Mr Putin on June 16 in Geneva.  

When he meets Mr Johnson later today, he is set to set up a new ‘Atlantic Charter’ modelled on the post-Second World War pact made by FDR and Winston Churchill and will work to open up travel between the US and UK ‘as soon as possible’.

However, there are signs that Mr Biden and Mr Johnson may not get along so easily, after Washington rebuked London for ‘inflaming tensions’ over the Northern Ireland Brexit Protocol – an astonishing broadside at an ally.

A memo seen by the Times states that the President had used his diplomats to ‘strongly urge’ Britain to ‘stay cool’ and reach an agreement with the EU, even if that meant making ‘unpopular [political] compromises’.

Mr Biden even threatened to torpedo British chances of striking a new free trade deal with the US if Mr Johnson did not calm tensions – sparking fury among senior Brexiteers who branded the 78-year-old ‘senile’.

The White House has since tried to put out the flames of a major transatlantic bust-up with Britain, with a senior administration official telling the BBC: ‘This is wrong.

‘First this discussion wasn’t directed by the President. It was not heightened. As with any ally we have diplomatic conversations about areas where we have concern at many levels.

‘Jake (Sullivan – US national security adviser) addressed the issue of Northern Ireland during his BBC interview and the message sent privately was exactly the same.’ 

The official later added that the president would not get ‘controversial or adversarial’ when he speaks to the PM about Northern Ireland.

‘He didn’t come here to give a lecture,’ they said.

‘He believes that the Good Friday agreement is the foundation for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland … the current discussions between the UK and EU should continue the vitality of Good Friday agreement.’

However, if it is confirmed that a demarche was sent, it will show the strength of feeling in the Biden administration over Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland Protocol, agreed in October 2019, seeks to prevent a hard land border between the UK province and the Republic of Ireland.  Under the terms of the deal, Northern Ireland is effectively in the Single Market and is also bound by the rules of the EU customs union. However, tensions between Britain and Brussels have flared over the flow of UK-produced chilled meats to Northern Ireland, dubbed the ‘sausage war’. 

The president staunchly opposed the Brexit movement, the British exodus from the European Union that Johnson championed, and has expressed great concern with the future of Northern Ireland. And Biden once called the British leader a ‘physical and emotional clone’ of Trump. 

His rebuke to Mr Johnson is a marked departure from the US’s hostility to the EU under his predecessor. Mr Trump spent his four-year term embroiled in rows with European nations over transatlantic trade and the level of contributions made by NATO member states to defence spending levels.

But Mr Biden’s criticism of Mr Johnson and the UK should be seen through the context of the president’s own personal and familial interest in Ireland.

Mr Biden, who is fiercely proud of his Irish roots, has warned that nothing should undermine Northern Ireland’s 1998 Good Friday peace accord. Some on the British side have viewed Biden warily because of his heritage.

Mr Biden has previously spoken with pride about his Irish Catholic roots in his Pennsylvania birthplace, and he travelled to County Mayo in 2016 to visit distant relatives. He is seen as far more open to Irish re-unification than his predecessor. And he is unlikely to see eye-to-eye with loyalists like the DUP. 

In 2015 he sparked fury, when, as a senator, he quipped to an Irish delegation that no one ‘wearing orange’ was welcome in his house on St Patrick’s Day, a comment seen as a slur against Protestants in Ulster.

Mr Biden was also photographed alongside former Sinn Fein president Mr Adams and with his arm around the party’s then US representative, Rita O’Hare, in 2017. In 1972 she was arrested in Northern Ireland for the attempted murder of a British Army officer in Belfast the previous year.

Yesterday the First Lady thanked the troops their service in her brief remarks, and touted her Joining Forces initiative – a group she formed with then-first lady Michelle Obama to support families of American troops. 

‘I hope that you know how special you are. And we are so grateful for your and your family’s service,’ she said.   

She and the US President left the White House on Wednesday and touched down at RAF Mildenhall, Suffolk in Air Force One just after 7.30pm, kicking off the president’s eight-day trip to Europe.

The UK stop will include this week’s G7 summit as well as face-to-face meetings with the Queen and Mr Johnson.

Mr Biden’s packed scheduled also includes meetings with NATO leaders and EU leaders in Brussels. His trip will be capped off with a sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Geneva next week.

For his first event, Mr Biden will meet US military personnel stationed at the base before heading to Carbis Bay near St Ives, where the leaders of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada will gather for three days. 

Mr Biden is scheduled to meet with Mr Johnson for face-to-face talks today – the first time the two men will have met in person – before the G7 Summit formally gets underway on Friday. However, their planned visit to St Michael’s Mount off the coast of Cornwall has been cancelled due to bad weather.

When the summit ends on Sunday, the President and First Lady will meet the Queen at Windsor Castle.

Mr Biden will then depart for Brussels where he will attend a NATO summit and a joint US-EU summit before then heading to Switzerland for a bilateral showdown with Mr Putin. 

In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Mr Biden said that the trip is about ‘realising America’s renewed commitment to our allies and partners’ as he attempts to build bridges with Britain and the EU after some leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel clashed with his predecessor. 

Mr Trump engaged in a bitter trade row with the EU and slammed NATO members for failing to spend more on defense – sparking fears that he would pull the US out of the military alliance and embolden Russian activity in Ukraine and eastern Europe.

Mr Trump also formally withdrew the US from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Agreement – both negotiated by Barack Obama. One of Mr Biden’s first acts as President was to rejoin the climate accord and reopen nuclear talks with the Iranian government, as he sought to reverse the actions of the previous administration. 

The White House has said that Mr Biden will meet with Mr Johnson to ‘affirm the special relationship between our nations’ – a term which the prime minister reportedly dislikes because it is ‘too needy’.  

Whitehall is understood to have viewed the President’s decision to make the UK his first overseas destination as a major diplomatic victory for Mr Johnson. 

Biden’s Cornish West Wing: US president and G7 leaders hole up in £200-a-night castle hotel that has been turned into a fortress in staycation hotspot St Ives

World leaders attending the G7 summit in Cornwall this weekend will spend their downtime at a £200-a-night 18th century castle that has been turned into a fortress. 

The Grade II-listed Tregenna Castle Resort was built in 1774 and will be home for the likes of US president Joe Biden between discussions at the summit.

And Mr Biden will feel right at home with the hotel’s best rooms dubbed the West Wing Sea View rooms with stunning views over St Ives. 

Set in 72 acres with commanding views of the St Ives coastline, the Treganna Castle was seen as the perfect place for world leaders to stay and relax after attending meetings of the G7 summit.

With its secluded grounds, manicured lawns and an 18-hole golf course – an ideal landing spot for US President Joe Biden’s Marine One helicopter – it is by far the largest and grandest hotel in Cornwall.

With 98 rooms and 55 apartments it was large enough to cope with the President’s entourage of advisors and Secret Service agents as well as other world leaders from France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie will also be in residence during the summit taking place a short distance away at the Carbis Bay Hotel.

And to ensure the privacy of the world leaders, a giant fence has been erected around Tregenna, with police on patrol with sniffer dogs and extra lighting installed. 

The hotel is less than a ten minute drive from the Carbis Bay Hotel in Cornwall where Mr Biden and Mr Johnson will be attempting to thrash out agreements on issues like climate change, international travel and Northern Ireland, alongside other world leaders.

Perched on top of a hill overlooking Carbis Bay on the Cornish coastline, politicians will be able to explore Tregenna’s secluded grounds and natural woodlands – and perhaps even enjoy a friendly game on its 18-hole golf course. 

They will also be able to take a dip in the hotel’s indoor or outdoor swimming pools, a round of tennis on its two all-weather courts or even a workout in its well-stocked fitness suite. 

The US President and his wife Jill are thought to be staying in one of the self-contained apartments with spectacular views over St Ives Bay or one of the West Wing suites. 

Tregenna was built in 1774 as a 12-bedroom private home for a wealthy Cornishman with a love for the sea.

Samuel Stephens commissioned the build of the house from local granite. The house remained in the family until it was sold by their final heir, John Stephens, to a family of local bankers, the Bolithos, in 1871.

The hotel is named after the hill in St Ives which it was built upon with the renowned architect John Wood the Younger, best known for Bath’s Royal Crescent, designing the home.

The Bolithos acquired the house at the same time that Isambard Kingdom Brunel was building the Great Western Railway from London to Penzance to serve the West of England.

At the time it was then fashionable for all the great railway companies to establish destination hotels by the sea.

Great Western Railway bought the hotel in 1895 and it was so popular they later named two steam locomotives after the castle resort.

Sir Daniel Gooch, the chairman of the GWR, stayed at the hotel a few weeks after it opened to the public and recorded in his diary: ‘The situation of this house is very fine; it is a castle within its own grounds of about 70 acres (28 ha), a great part of which are gardens and woods with pretty shaded walks.’

The hotel underwent major development throughout the early 1900s.

The West Wing was completed in 1932 with one of the guests Hitler’s Ambassador, Herr Von Ribbentrop.

It’s said that he later sent a message back which stated that on no account was St Ives to be bombed as he wished to live in Tregenna when ‘they’ had won the war.

Under the current owners, the Treganna Hotel Estate, the luxury destination has hosted many famous guests, from the late Duke of Edinburgh, former Prime Minister John Major, actress Dame Judy Dench and singer David Bowie.

The cast of the hit TV series Poldark, including its star Aiden Turner, also stayed at the hotel while filming the BBC series. 

As well as the 18-hole President’s golf course there are two swimming pools for leisure activities.

Away from the G7 summit the hotel is popular for weddings with two indoor and four outdoor venues.

A ring of steel surrounding the G7 summit has seen 11,000 police officers and 150 sniffer dogs gather to combat potential threats.

President Biden and his wife Jill flew into Newquay Airport shortly before midnight and were driven to their accommodation at Treganna in a convoy of cars flanked by police outriders.