President Biden delivered a mix of jokes and criticism of the presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald J. Trump at the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington on Saturday.
“A candidate is too old and too mentally incompetent to be president,” Mr. Biden said. “The other is me.”
It was the first time since Mr. Biden became President that he attended the dinner, a light-hearted evening at a series of high-profile gatherings in Washington, where politicians and journalists donned white gloves and bow ties to lightly grill each other through speeches and sketch. The Gridiron Club, one of the oldest press clubs in Washington, hosted the dinner at the Grand Hyatt in Washington.
But Mr. Biden didn’t just target his opponent. He was saving time to go after congressional Republicans and their efforts to impeach him and his national security secretary, Alejandro N. Mayorkas.
“Republicans would rather fail at impeachment than succeed at anything else,” he said. Referring to Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, who was sitting at his table, Mr Biden said: “He looked at Congress and asked for another Guinness.”
But during the roughly nine-minute remarks, Mr. Biden also took a more serious tone to issue stark warnings about threats to democracy. His aides hope the emphasis on the stakes of the November election will rally voters to the polls amid low approval numbers for Mr. Biden.
“Freedom is under attack,” Mr. Biden said. “The lies about the 2020 election, the conspiracy to subvert it, to embrace the January 6th uprising, are the greatest threat to our democracy since the American Civil War.”
“A poison running through the veins of our democracy,” Mr. Biden continued. “Misinformation everywhere. There is a toxic cycle of anger and conspiracy.”
The president also took aim at Mr Trump’s recent statement that he does not stand up for NATO allies who do not pay their dues to the alliance.
“Democracy and freedom are literally under attack,” Mr. Biden said. “Putin on the march in Europe. My predecessor bows to him and says, “Do whatever the hell you want.” An American president actually said that.”
The president’s table included Vice President Kamala Harris, his top cabinet officials and Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. Mr. Biden singled out two others at his table: the prime minister of Estonia and the Ukrainian ambassador.
“We will not bow down, they will not bow down and I will not bow down,” Mr Biden said.
Mr Biden also previewed his campaign while following one of Mr Trump’s most memorable proposals during the Covid pandemic. He promised that his administration would show “how we got through the pandemic, turned the economy around, restored American leadership in the world — all without encouraging the American people to inject bleach.”
“Or without destroying the economy, embarrassing us around the world, or pushing us into rebellion,” he continued. “Look, I wish it was funny, but it’s not.”
