WASHINGTON – President Biden will make jokes in front of more than 2,000 guests on Saturday at a resumed White House reporters’ dinner as DC’s biggest annual party returns after two years of COVID-19 restrictions.
The dinner for reporters, officials and celebrities starts at about 8 pm in the Washington Hilton and will include remarks by the incumbent president for the first time since 2016 and entertainment by The Daily Show host Trevor Noah.
Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson, Drew Barrymore and Bill Gates’ ex-wife Melinda French Gates are among the expected guests at the $ 350 party.
The gala concert of the black tie will continue despite fears that it will be one of the biggest super-distributors of the pandemic. More than 10 percent of those attending a similar but much smaller and more cheeky dinner at the Gridiron Club this month were infected with the coronavirus.
Dinner marks the beginning of a holiday night and will draw significant attention to the red carpet for the first time since the Obama administration.
Participants must present evidence of vaccination and a negative rapid test for COVID-19 on the same day, but Biden will not eat to limit his possible exposure to COVID-19, the White House said.
President Biden, seen earlier on April 30, 2022, will be joking at a big dinner in DC. AP Photo / Patrick Semansky Daily Show host Trevor Noah is the headliner of the dinner. Reuters The event returned after the restrictions of COVID, but there are fears that it will be a super distributor after a recent event caused an epidemic. Reuters
After dinner, Colombian Ambassador Juan Carlos Pinzon and the cryptocurrency platform Binance are organizing a big after party at the Dupont Circle mansion – called “Evening of Magical Realism”.
One of the most sought-after afterparties of the night was hosted by veteran White House reporter April Ryan of TheGrio at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Rush Hour actor Chris Tucker will host the party – called “Table Seat: Black Media Festival” – and will be performed by nine-time Grammy Award winner Mary J. Blige.
Speaking at the dinner, Biden is expected to present himself as a press champion after former President Donald Trump boycotted the dinner and attacked journalists as “fake news”. In recent speeches, Biden praised reporters covering the war in Ukraine.
But Biden also insulted the press – calling Fox News’s “stupid stupid son of a bitch” in January – and his White House staffers restricted access to the press much more than during the Trump administration.
Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian mingle at a White House dinner. Reuters
In a break from the Trump era, when most major indoor events at the White House were open to any reporter who wished to attend, Biden’s press mysteriously reviewed reporters, citing the pandemic, and ultimately disapproved of certain media outlets.
The White House is demanding that reporters be held accountable for Biden’s private events and then opaquely select those who are allowed to attend. Biden’s deputies declined to disclose the selection criteria and provided a number of conflicting explanations to individual journalists. Reporters understand the practice as a way to shape the questions that are asked.
As a blow to Biden’s perceived accessibility, an employee dressed in an Easter bunny costume interrupted him last week to stop him from trying to answer a reporter’s question in the White House Easter egg roll.
Disappointing the White House press office, Biden also gave far fewer interviews than his predecessors, and most of them went to television or social media personalities rather than print.
Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian attend the White House Correspondents Association dinner in 2022. Paul Morrigue / Getty Images Miranda Kerr and her husband Evan Spiegel arrive on the red carpet. Tom Brenner’s lawyer / REUTERS Benjamin Crump gestures as he arrives on the red carpet for the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents Association. Tom Brenner / Reuters
Biden participated in only 28 interviews in his first year in office – against 95 from Trump, 162 from Barack Obama and 50 from George W. Bush. Even Ronald Reagan, who was shot in the lung in an assassination attempt shortly after taking office, doubled Biden by doing 65 interviews in his first year.
However, Biden outperformed his predecessors in holding more frequent short Q&A sessions – from 225 to 20 January, against 120 from Trump, 46 from Obama and 148 from George W. Bush – according to records kept by the director of the Transition Project of the White House Martha Kumar. But these exchanges are generally short and can be answered in one word to questions.
Probably to oppose public opinion that he avoids press engagements, Biden gave a one-hour, 52-minute press conference in January that was longer than any organized by Trump or Obama, according to former CBS News reporter Mark Naller, who is respected for his record keeping in the White House.
Martha Stewart arrives on the red carpet for the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents Association. Tom Brenner / Reuters Mario Van Peebles and Chris Tucker arrive on the red carpet. Tom Brenner / Reuters
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki, on vacation from the Trump era, also hosts daily press briefings, although she spends most of her time in the first two rows of the seven-row briefing. The questions often come to TV reporters who ask recurring questions about major news stories so that each network gets a video with its own correspondent. On Friday, Psaki answered questions from only two reporters who were not sitting in the front two rows.
Psaki tried to make a joke on Friday, telling reporters that Biden’s speech about dinner was “not funny at all.”
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