President Biden has stepped up his jokes lately, largely to target his opponent, former President Donald J. Trump. He is expected to honor members of the press during the annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner on Saturday.
Dinner at the Washington Hilton Hotel offers journalists and government officials a break from their normal daily jousting for a night of glitz and gossip in celebration of the free press. Mr. Biden will make his third attempt at a humorous speech to the assembled crowd and will most likely continue to fire up the news outlets and his Republican rivals.
But Mr. Biden is also expected to issue a more serious warning at a time when journalists around the world are being jailed or imprisoned more frequently for doing their jobs.
During an interview on Friday with Sirius XM radio host Howard Stern, Mr Biden said he would emphasize the importance of a free press. But Mr. Biden, who has held fewer news conferences than his predecessors, also suggested it could come with criticism.
After mentioning his upcoming speech, Mr. Biden said he was concerned that members of the news media would not take tough enough action against his political opponent, Mr. Trump.
“I think some of them are afraid to attack him, afraid to take him on,” Mr. Biden said.
On Saturday, however, Mr. Biden is expected to mostly put the tension aside and join in with reporters for a few laughs. Colin Jost, a former Staten Island Advance newspaper reporter and co-host of the “Weekend Update” segment of “Saturday Night Live,” will headline the dinner.
“He’s a writer first and foremost, and all of our members can relate to that,” Kelly O’Donnell, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said in an interview with Deadline last week. “As a student journalist, he worked as a reporter from a very early age. He gets it, and writing is the foundation of his entire entertainment career.”
Mr. Biden himself has been testing material recently. He has addressed Mr. Trump’s suggestion from his time in office that Americans should inject themselves with disinfectant to prevent Covid, and even joked this week that Mr. Trump had tried it himself. “It all got to him,” he said.
The president also tried some self-deprecating jokes about one of voters’ biggest concerns: his age. During a fundraiser on Thursday at the home of actor Michael Douglas, who played Benjamin Franklin on television, Mr. Biden said Franklin was just a few years older than him.
Mr. Biden was the first president to attend since 2016; Mr. Trump boycotted the event while in office. During Mr. Biden’s first year in office, the dinner was canceled due to concerns about the pandemic.
Source link
2024-04-27 09:05:44
www.nytimes.com