WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Saturday used his White Home correspondents’ dinner speech to swipe at former President Donald Trump, taking pictures on the presumptive GOP nominee whereas highlighting the stakes of the election.
Biden cracked jokes at his political rival’s expense and tackled age head-on, saying that he was “a grown man working in opposition to a six-year-old.”
The president stated later that age was the one factor he and Trump had in frequent, including, “My vice chairman truly endorses me,” a reference to former Vice President Mike Pence’s refusal to say he’ll again his former working mate in 2024.
However Biden’s speech took a critical flip when he mentioned the stakes of November’s presidential election, echoing themes of his marketing campaign speeches as he highlighted what he known as Trump’s “assault on our democracy.”
The president urged the press to “rise as much as the seriousness of the second.”
“Transfer previous the horse race numbers and the ‘gotcha’ moments and the distractions and the sideshows which have come to dominate and sensationalize our politics, and concentrate on what’s truly at stake,” Biden stated. “I believe in your hearts, you recognize what’s at stake.”
Biden additionally highlighted the detention of The Wall Road Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been imprisoned in Russia for greater than a yr on espionage expenses that he and his employer deny. His case has been categorized as a wrongful detention by the U.S.
The president known as on Russian President Vladimir Putin to launch Gershkovich instantly, including that the White Home was additionally doing all the pieces it might to deliver house freelance journalist Austin Tice and businessman Paul Whelan.
Gershkovich’s dad and mom and Tice’s mom had been among the many roughly 2,600 friends on the dinner, an estimate supplied by NBC Information political correspondent Steve Kornacki in a video that performed on the occasion.
“I provide you with my phrase as a Biden: We’re not going to surrender till we get them house,” Biden stated. “All of them.”
Biden additionally highlighted the wrongful detention of People overseas, together with Gershkovich, eventually yr’s dinner. The president emphasised throughout final yr’s remarks that “journalism just isn’t a criminal offense,” noting {that a} free press is a “pillar” of a “free society.”
Celebrities who went to Saturday’s occasion included Scarlett Johansson, who’s married to Jost; Rachel Brosnahan and Quavo. Excessive-profile politicians and administration officers, together with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn, attended as effectively.
First girl Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff additionally attended the occasion, which occurred on the Washington Hilton.
NBC Information Senior White Home Correspondent Kelly O’Donnell is serving because the White Home Correspondents Affiliation’s 2023-24 president and presided over the dinner.
“Saturday Night time Stay” solid member Colin Jost was the dinner’s featured entertainer. He co-anchors the NBC present’s “Weekend Replace” phase.
Like Biden, Jost cracked a number of jokes on the former president’s expense, together with Trump’s felony trial, beginning his remarks by saying “how refreshing it’s to see a president of the US at an occasion that does not start with a bailiff saying, ‘All rise.'”
Jost additionally focused Biden at instances, evaluating the economic system with the president ascending Air Drive One’s steps: “It feels prefer it’s stumbling, however there’s by some means upward progress.” The comic additionally informed the president that his now-deceased grandfather voted for Biden within the final election as a result of he thought Biden was “an honest man.”
Whereas the dinner, a convention courting again 100 years, performed out contained in the ballroom, a whole bunch of protesters mobilized exterior the venue to name for a cease-fire and criticize Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas struggle in Gaza.
The protesters chanted, “Disgrace on you!” as attendees handed them to enter the lodge. In addition they yelled criticism of the media and a big signal learn, “Cease media complicity in genocide.”
![A Palestinian flag hands out a window at the Washington Hilton hotel during a protest over the Israel-Hamas war, at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on Saturday.](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best/rockcms/2024-04/240427-white-house-correspondents-association-dinner-joe-biden-wm-550p-979939.jpg)
“Each time the media lies, journalists in Gaza die,” the gang echoed the chief’s bullhorn chants.
Later, protesters known as for the autumn of Western media, chanting, “Brick by brick, wall by wall, Western media will fall.”
U.S. Secret Service Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi stated in an announcement that “attendees can anticipate layered safety and screening on the dinner,” including that there could be “intermittent” street closures close to the venue.
“In reference to the publicized demonstration, we’re working carefully with the Metropolitan Washington Police Division to guard people’ rights to assemble however we are going to stay illiberal to illegal conduct,” Guglielmi added.
After the dinner concluded, two protesters holding an indication saying “Cease Israel’s genocide” entered the lodge’s pink carpet space as friends had been departing. They heckled attendees and had been eliminated by safety.
![Demonstrators protest the Israel-Hamas war outside the Washington Hilton hote](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_fit-760w,f_auto,q_auto:best/rockcms/2024-04/240427-white-house-correspondents-association-dinner-wm-544p-6a490a.jpg)
The president has needed to deal with protesters demonstrating exterior of his official occasions, with protesters typically interrupting his speeches. In response, Biden’s staff has labored to make the president’s occasions smaller and withheld their actual places longer than normal within the hope of chopping again on potential interruptions.
Earlier this month, Palestinian journalists wrote an open letter calling on others to boycott the White Home correspondents’ dinner “as an act of solidarity with us — your fellow journalists — in addition to with the tens of millions of Palestinians at present being starved in Gaza,” pointing to the Biden administration’s help for Israel.