President Joe Biden issued one of his most dire warnings yet that Donald Trump and his allies are a menace to American democracy, declaring Thursday that the former president is more interested in personal power than upholding the nation’s core values and suggesting even mainstream Republicans are complicit.

“The silence is deafening,” he said.

President Joe Biden launched a wide-ranging attack on Republican Donald Trump on Thursday, warning that his predecessor is a threat to American democracy and drawing a sharp distinction between himself and his likely 2024 election opponent.

To make his most extensive critique of Trump this year, Biden, a Democrat, chose an event to honor the late Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, a former presidential candidate, fighter pilot and Vietnam prisoner of war who Trump had denounced as "not a war hero."

President Joe Biden said Sunday his visit to Vietnam to showcase stronger ties with Hanoi was not about trying to start a “cold war” with China, but rather was part of a broader effort to provide global stability by building U.S. relationships throughout Asia at a time of tensions with Beijing.

“It’s not about containing China,” Biden said at a news conference in Vietnam’s capital after attending the Group of 20 summit in India. “It’s about having a stable base.”

The US and Vietnam have forged partnerships worth billions of dollars in the semiconductor, tech and aviation sectors, the countries announced during President Joe Biden's historic visit to Hanoi.

The visit has brought top executives from Google, Intel, Boeing and others to the table as part of the Vietnam-U.S. Innovation & Investment Summit. Vietnamese representatives included executives from the Nasdaq-listed electric car maker VinFast, Vietnam Airlines and VNG, a digital platform that filed for a US IPO in August.

President Joe Biden ended a Vietnam press conference on Sunday by frankly telling reporters he had to go to bed after wrapping up the 2023 Group of 20 summit.

Biden was speaking in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi after two days at the G20 summit in New Delhi, India. He was answering a question about China's relationship with the United States before announcing that he was sleepy.

"But I tell you what, I don't know about you, but I'm going to go to bed," Biden said to a group of reporters.

President Biden announced Friday he will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom next week to 17 individuals including ex-lawmaker and gun control activist Gabby Giffords, the late Sen. John McCain, Trump critic Khizr Khan, Olympic athlete Simone Biles and Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington. 

Ms. Giffords, a former House lawmaker from Arizona, founded a gun-violence prevention group after surviving an assassination attempt in 2011. 

Steve Jobs, the co-founder and former CEO of Apple, has been awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden, the White House announced Friday. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest US honor that can be given to a civilian, and it’s presented to “individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors,” the White House said in a statement.