US President Joe Biden attacked former President Donald Trump on Saturday with jokes about his opponent’s mental fitness during a speech at the Gridiron Club dinner, a Washington tradition that began in the 1880s.
“A candidate is too old and mentally unfit to be president. The other is me”, commented Biden in front of more than 650 guests, which included the founder of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, and the CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, whose businesses in the US could be banned by Biden.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment. The Republican also questions Biden’s mental capacity to be president.
As a result, Biden’s presence at the dinner, in which politicians and journalists exchanged humorous barbs at a formal event, was the first time that a president had attended in person since former President Donald Trump, in 2018.
Biden, 81, recently won the Democratic nomination for this year’s presidential election and will face Trump, 77, in a rematch in November.
The Democrat is trying to positively impact voters, boost his approval ratings and dispel concerns that he is too old to run again.
Biden reinforced the importance of the press, which he said was not “the enemy of the people”, in stark contrast to Trump’s previous remarks about the media.
He also spoke about the war in Ukraine with Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who attended Saturday’s dinner. “We will not bow, they (Ukrainians) will not bow to us and we will not bow,” he highlighted.
After his speech, Biden took selfies with reporters and called a guest’s mother.
