White House Correspondents’ Dinner gives Biden a chance to flex his funny bone
CNN
President Joe Biden on Saturday night will attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, giving the president a stage and primetime slot to needle the media and his rival former President Donald Trump.
President Joe Biden on Saturday night will attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, giving the president a stage and primetime slot to needle the media and his rival former President Donald Trump. Biden will speak to a crowd of nearly 3,000 journalists, celebrities and politicians, continuing a tradition dating back to Calvin Coolidge of presidents addressing the dinner at least once during their term. Trump did not attend the dinner as president, but had previously been a guest as a private citizen. Biden in recent weeks has been flexing an instinct that doesn’t necessarily come naturally to him — a sense of humor — to take on his rival, making fun of his hair; the dropping stock price of Trump’s social media company; and the former president’s new endeavor into selling Trump-branded Bibles to take some air out of the outsized attention and coverage Trump is getting during his criminal trial. “I haven’t had a chance to watch the court proceedings because I’ve been campaigning,” Biden told supporters at a campaign reception in New York Thursday, according to pool reports. While Biden has delivered many of these speeches before, the stakes for what could be his last White House Correspondents’ Dinner are high. His approval rating is flagging, and voters and donors alike have raised questions about whether his mental acuity is up to the task. When Biden delivered remarks announcing he’d signed critical legislation sending $61 billion in aid to Ukraine and $26 billion in aid to Israel and Gaza, there was a new critic standing by: Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-chair of Biden’s reelection campaign and the onetime chief of content studio Dreamworks.
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