Biden jokes about Trump’s ‘mental illness’ at traditional Washington dinner | US Election 2024 News

The digs towards his Republican rival come because the US president deflects criticism that his reminiscence is hazy and he seems confused.

US President Joe Biden has joked about former President Donald Trump’s psychological health throughout a speech on the Gridiron Membership dinner, a Washington custom that started within the Eighteen Eighties.

“One candidate is simply too outdated and mentally unfit to be president. The opposite one is me,” Biden mentioned on Saturday in entrance of greater than 650 company who included the Taoiseach of Eire Leo Varadkar, Amazon founder and Washington Submit proprietor Jeff Bezos, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, whose US enterprise may very well be banned by Biden.

“Don’t inform him, he thinks he’s working towards Barack Obama, that’s what he mentioned,” mentioned Biden, 81, who additionally quipped that he was staying up well past his bedtime.

Trump’s marketing campaign didn’t reply, although the 77-year-old Republican chief has additionally questioned Biden’s psychological capability to be president. The Democratic chief has deflected ongoing criticism that his reminiscence is hazy and he seems confused.

It was the primary time Biden had attended the normal dinner throughout his presidency, and comes because the 2024 election looms and the November rematch between Biden and Trump heats up.

Biden’s look on the dinner, during which politicians and journalists commerce humorous barbs in a white-tie formal affair, was the primary time a president has attended in individual since Trump himself got here in 2018.

Biden bolstered the significance of the press, which he mentioned just isn’t “the enemy of the individuals”, in stark distinction to earlier remarks by Trump in regards to the information media.

He additionally spoke in regards to the conflict in Ukraine with Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, who attended Saturday’s dinner. “We won’t bow down, they [Ukrainians] won’t bow down and I can’t bow down,” Biden mentioned.

After his speech, Biden descended to the ground and took selfies with reporters and known as one visitor’s mom.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, representing the Democratic Social gathering on the occasion, additionally spoke, in addition to Utah Governor Spencer Cox, representing the Republican Social gathering.

Cox, 48, joked that he was saying his candidacy for the presidency “in 2052, after I nonetheless shall be youthful than each President Biden and President Trump”.