Biden burns himself and Trump at dinner for White House correspondents

Saturday night’s annual White House press corps gala returned with a call from Washington, DC, with reporters covering it and the man in charge: President Joe Biden.

The White House Correspondents Association dinner, sidelined by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, has returned with Biden as the first president in six years to accept the invitation. Donald Trump avoided the event while in office.

“Imagine if my predecessor came to this dinner this year,” Biden told an audience of 2,600, including journalists, government officials and celebrities. “Now it would really be a real success.”

The president seized the occasion and focused on the criticism he faced for 18 months, targeting his predecessor, the Republican Party, and members of the press.

“I’m very happy to be here tonight with the only group of Americans who have a lower rating than I do,” Biden said.

The night was filled with filmed comedy scenes, including Late Night TV presenters, comedians and even Biden himself. One of the pre-recorded segments featured James Corden, who announced this week that he was leaving as host. late showBiden asks for a job. Explaining how to find the White House meeting room, Biden told the star: “Left, right, left and don’t go back.”

The dinner also had its serious moments, honoring pioneering journalists of color, rookie student reporters, and honoring a journalist who was arrested, wounded or killed during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

White House Correspondents Dinner with James Corden @JKCorden video#WHCD #NerdProm pic.twitter.com/277PhWMJFC

– CSPAN (@cspan) May 1, 2022

Earlier in the evening, to get back to normal, journalists, government officials and celebrities marched down the red carpet, even as the massive COVID-19 ballroom was under threat.

comedy is back daily program He leads Trevor Noah as headliner after BIden. Celebrities reappeared: Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson walked the rug, as did Brooke Shields and Caitlin Jenner. The event attracted a large number of government officials and other prominent figures.

Noah kicked off his performance by greeting everyone at the “biggest super-expansion event in the country”. He jokingly criticized the crowd for attending: “You’ve spent the last two years telling everyone the importance of wearing masks and avoiding large gatherings indoors. “So when someone offers them a free dinner, they all turn into Joe Rogan.”

The comedian then addressed an incident at the 2022 Oscars ceremony in which Will Smith took the stage after joking with Chris Rock about the actor’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. “Actually, I’m a little nervous tonight, I’m not lying,” Noah said. “I was wondering what would happen if I made a really nasty joke about Kelly Conway and then her husband came up on stage and thanked me.”

Biden met with thousands of participants as he tried to strike a careful balance at a crucial time for the country. Her government is trying to reverse the pandemic, although the virus remains a national and nearby threat. Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive this week and Dr. Anthony Fauche skipped dinner for health reasons.

Dozens of attendees, including members of Congress and members of Biden’s cabinet and journalists, voted in favor of COVID-19 after the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington.

That raised questions about whether Biden, 79, should attend Saturday’s dinner. The president was scheduled to host a meal, but later appeared on the show and wore a mask when not speaking. Instead, he was masked as he greeted the award winners and smiled widely throughout the night.

The White House highlighted the abundance of the antiviral pill Paxlovid, which has been shown to reduce the serious consequences of the virus by 90%, including the highest risk.

And yet, spokeswoman Jen Psaki said of Biden: “We want to make it very clear that he is likely to test positive for COVID, just like any American.”

The White House Correspondents Association said it requires same-day antigen testing for dinner attendees, even before Gridiron’s launch. He then added a vaccination order.

The United States is facing the peak of COVID-19 cases of the highly contagious omicron subvariant, with confirmed infections rising to about 44,000 a day, up from 26,000 a month ago.

Despite the latest wave of COVID-19 cases, virus mortality and hospitalization at or near pandemic levels, the BA.2 variant is less severe than previous strains of the virus. More than 300 people die daily from the virus in the United States, up from more than 2,600 daily earlier this year, about 1,600 hospitalizations a day, up from more than 21,000 daily peaks in January.

Psaki said Biden’s decision to attend was “in stark contrast to his predecessor, who not only questioned the legitimacy of the press on an almost daily basis, but never attended the dinner.” Trump, who has from time to time called the media “enemies of the people,” gleefully boycotted the event as president.

Adding to the looming threat of the virus, Biden planned to take the microphone as a massive and deadly invasion of Ukraine continued in the hands of Russian forces.

“I’ve always respected the press, but you can’t tell me how much I respect them in the areas where they are,” Biden said at a Russian-hosted dinner last week about the war in Ukraine. Under fire. “

“Imagine if we don’t get that information,” the president added. “It would be a different world.”

The Correspondents’ Dinner was held in 1921. Three years later, Calvin Coolidge became the first president to attend, and after him, everyone but Trump. Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon chose not to attend every year of their presidency, although Ronald Reagan, then recovering from an assassination attempt, missed part of 1981 but was called Camp David.

“I think it shows the restoration of a healthy relationship,” said Harold Holzer, author of Presidents v. Press and director of the Roosevelt House Institute for Public Policy at Hunter College, New York. . “It’s still thorny, there are still moments of tension. But this is good”.

After comedian Michelle Wolf’s witty satire in 2018 sparked controversy, the following year the event was revealed by historian Ron Chernow. Celebrity Returns This time, it recalls the administration of President Barack Obama, when George Clooney, Charlize Theron and Viola Davis attended.

As vice president in 2014, Biden appeared in a comedy video with HBO’s “Veep” star Julia Lewis-Dreyfus, which provoked plenty of laughs at the correspondents’ dinner. White House speechwriting director Vinay Reddy and longtime Biden adviser Mike Donilon worked on Biden’s remarks this year, the White House said, taking materials from a variety of people both inside and outside the parents.

Psaki has already admitted that he was trying to lower expectations, saying the speech “wasn’t funny at all. ᲣJoke.” However, presidential attempts at humor can be dangerous.

At a 2011 dinner, Obama embarrassed Trump, in his presence, over Trump’s fictitious statements about the then-president’s birth certificate. Obama ended up thinking that Trump would one day take office and say, “You will certainly make a difference in the White House”, while the screens in the banquet halls reproduced a parody of 1,600 Pennsylvania avenues with the Trump logo, golden columns, digital clock. and “Hotel, Casino, Golf Course, Presidential Suite” sign.

This turned out to be prophetic because Trump, of course, took Obama’s place, even though the changes he brought to the presidency prevented him from taking his name into the White House.