The Scotsman

Gaza protesters target White House dinner but Biden stays focused on Trump

- Farnoush Amiri

The war in Gaza spurred large protests outside a glitzy event with US President Joe Biden, journalist­s, politician­s and celebritie­s, but it went all but unmentione­d by participan­ts inside.

Mr Biden instead used the annual White House correspond­ents’ dinner to make both jokes and grim warnings about Republican rival Donald Trump’s fight to reclaim the US presidency. An evening normally devoted to presidents, journalist­s and comedians taking outrageous pokes at political scandals and each other this year often seemed to illustrate the difficulty­of putting aside the coming presidenti­al election and the troubles in the Middle east and elsewhere.

Mr Biden opened his roast with a direct but joking focus on mr trump, calling him “sleepy Don” - in reference to a nickname the Republican had given the president previously.

Despite being similar in age, Mr Biden said the two presidenti­al hopefuls have little else in common.

“My vice-president actually endorses me,” Mr Biden said, highlighti­ng that former Trump vice-president Mike Pence has refused to endorse Mr Trump's re-election bid.

But the president quickly segued to a grim speech about what he believes is at stake in the election, saying another Trump administra­tion would be even more harmful to america than his first term.

“We have to take this serious - eight years ago we could have written it off as ‘Trump talk’ but not after January 6,” Mr Biden told the audience, referring to the supporters of the Republican who stormed the Capitol after he was dumped from office in 2020.

Mr Trump did not attend Saturday’s dinner and never attended the annual banquet as president. In 2011, he sat in the audience and glowered through a roasting by thenpresid­ent Barack Obama of his reality television celebrity status. Mr Obama’s sarcasm then was so scalding that many political watchers linked it to Mr Trump’s subsequent decision to run for president in 2016.

Mrbiden'sspeech,whichlaste­d around 10 minutes, made no mention of the ongoing war or the growing humanitari­an crisis in Gaza.

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