© Reuters. U.S. President Joe Biden walks in the direction of Marine One as he departs the White Home in Washington, U.S., March 13, 2024. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
By Stephanie Kelly
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden took jabs on Saturday at former President Donald Trump with jokes in regards to the psychological health of his election opponent throughout a speech on the Gridiron Membership dinner, a Washington custom that started within the Eighties.
Biden’s look on the dinner, by which politicians and journalists commerce humorous barbs in a white-tie formal affair, was the primary time a president has attended in individual since former President Donald Trump in 2018.
Biden, 81, lately clinched the Democratic Celebration’s nomination for this 12 months’s presidential election and can face off in opposition to Trump, 77, in a rematch in November. Biden is making an attempt to courtroom voters, increase his low approval rankings and allay considerations that he’s too outdated to run once more.
“One candidate is just too outdated and mentally unfit to be president. The opposite one is me,” Biden mentioned on Saturday, in entrance of greater than 650 company who included the Taoiseach of Eire Leo Varadkar, Amazon (NASDAQ:) founder and Washington Put up proprietor Jeff Bezos, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, whose U.S. enterprise may very well be banned by Biden.
Trump’s marketing campaign didn’t reply to a request for remark. Trump has additionally questioned Biden’s psychological capability to be president.
Biden strengthened the significance of the press, which he mentioned is just not “the enemy of the individuals,” in stark distinction to earlier remarks by Trump in regards to the information media.
He additionally spoke in regards to the warfare in Ukraine with Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas, who attended Saturday’s dinner. “We won’t bow down, they (Ukrainians) won’t bow down and I can’t bow down,” Biden mentioned.
After his speech, Biden descended to the ground and took selfies with reporters and referred to as one visitor’s mom.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, representing the Democratic Celebration on the occasion, additionally spoke on Saturday, in addition to Utah Governor Spencer Cox, representing the Republican Celebration.
Cox, 48, joked that he was asserting his candidacy for the presidency “in 2052, after I nonetheless shall be youthful than each President Biden and President Trump.”
Turning extra critical, he mentioned there’s a starvation amongst Individuals for one thing extra constructive in politics.
The membership’s 65 members, all representatives from information organizations, carried out satirical songs and skits. One tune poked enjoyable at Biden’s and Trump’s ages to the tune of “After I’m Sixty-4” by The Beatles.
Finally 12 months’s dinner, Mike Pence, who served as Vice President beneath Trump, provided a forceful rebuke of his one-time boss, saying historical past would maintain Trump accountable for his function within the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
Not like its sister occasion, the White Home Correspondents’ Affiliation dinner in April, the Gridiron dinner is not televised and tries to retain its yesteryear vibe with males in white tie and tails and ladies in lengthy attire.
No pictures are allowed through the dinner and contributors are requested to not publish on social media till after it has concluded.