Kim Kardashian, Pete Davidson and other stars on the red carpet for the White House Correspondents Dinner

To get back to normal, journalists, government officials and celebrities marched through the White House’s annual gala Saturday night, even as the threat of COVID-19 loomed over the hotel’s sprawling ballroom.

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

Comedy is also back. daily program Features Trevor Noah as headliner. Celebrities also reappeared: Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson walked the rug, as did Brooke Shields, Sophia Bush and Caitlin Jenner. The event attracted a large number of government officials and other prominent figures.

Biden will meet with more than 2,600 attendees as he tries 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 or not Biden, 79, should attend Saturday’s dinner. The president planned to serve the food, but it was later announced on the show. He would also be masked when not talking.

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.

“What I think it shows is the restoration of a healthy relationship,” said Holzer, director of the Roosevelt House Institute for Public Policy at Hunter College in 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.