Barack Obama Celebrates 50th Birthday

Pres. Barack Obama turns 50 today. He celebrated his birthday with party fundraiser in Chicago.

“I feel real good about 5-0,” President Obama says. “I’ve gotten a little grayer since I took this job but otherwise, I feel pretty good.”

Photograph: KeystoneUSA-Zuma/ Rex Features

Supporters paid up to $38,500 (£23,600) to join the president and hear him joke that he would soon have a reminder from a national organisation that helps the over-50s have “independence, choice and control” in ways that “are affordable to them and society as a whole”. “By the time I wake up, I’ll have an email from AARP asking me to call President Obama and tell him to protect Medicare,” he quipped.

Inevitably, Happy Birthday was sung, and there were performances by singer Jennifer Hudson, jazz musician Herbie Hancock and the rock band OK Go. Obama may take heart from the group’s new EP, All is Not Lost.