\u201cOne candidate\u2019s too old and mentally unfit to be president,\u201d Mr. Biden said. \u201cThe other guy\u2019s me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Mr. Biden, 81, has defended criticism about his age, he used the remarks to spotlight recent gaffes by Mr. Trump, 77, including references to running against a different president in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m running against the same guy that I beat in 2020 but don\u2019t tell him,\u201d Mr. Biden said. \u201cHe thinks he\u2019s running against Barack Obama. That\u2019s what he said.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was Mr. Biden\u2019s first time since becoming president to attend the dinner, a lighthearted night in a series of high-profile gatherings in Washington where politicians and journalists don white gloves and formal attire to lightly roast each other through speeches and skits. The Gridiron Club, one of the oldest journalism associations in Washington, hosted the dinner at the Grand Hyatt in Washington.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

Mr. Biden didn\u2019t just target his opponent, though. He saved time for a dig at congressional Republicans and their efforts to impeach him and his homeland security secretary, Alejandro N. Mayorkas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard House Republicans were going to do a skit tonight, but they couldn\u2019t get a speaker,\u201d he said, referring to the drawn-out election processes last year for Speakers Mike Johnson and Kevin McCarthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Republicans would rather fail at impeachment than succeed at anything else,\u201d he added. Referring to Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, who was sitting at his table, Mr. Biden said, \u201cHe took one look at Congress and he asked for another Guinness.\u201d<\/p>\n

But during the roughly nine-minute remarks, which Mr. Biden said he was delivering \u201csix hours past my bedtime,\u201d he also took a more serious tone to issue stark warnings about threats to democracy. His aides are hoping that emphasizing the stakes of the election in November will rally voters to the polls amid low approval numbers for Mr. Biden.<\/p>\n

\u201cFreedom is under assault,\u201d Mr. Biden said. \u201cThe lies about the 2020 election, the plot to overturn it, to embrace the Jan. 6 insurrection, pose the greatest threat to our democracy since the American Civil War.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cA poison coursing through the veins of our democracy,\u201d Mr. Biden continued. \u201cDisinformation everywhere. There\u2019s a toxic cycle of anger and conspiracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president also took aim at Mr. Trump\u2019s recent statement about not defending NATO allies who do not pay their dues to the alliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemocracy and freedom are literally under attack,\u201d Mr. Biden said. \u201cPutin\u2019s on the march in Europe. My predecessor bows down to him and says, \u2018Do whatever the hell you want.\u2019 An American president actually said that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s table included Vice President Kamala Harris, his top cabinet officials and Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. Mr. Biden also singled out two others at his table: the prime minister of Estonia and the Ukrainian ambassador.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not bow down, they will not bow down and I will not bow down,\u201d Mr. Biden said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Biden also previewed his campaign while jabbing at one of Mr. Trump\u2019s more memorable suggestions during the Covid pandemic. He promised that his administration would show \u201chow we got through the pandemic, turned around the economy, re-established American leadership in the world \u2014 all without encouraging the American people to inject bleach.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOr without destroying the economy, embarrassing us around the world or itching for insurrection,\u201d he continued. \u201cLook, I wish these were jokes, but they\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Biden delivered a mix of jokes and pointed criticisms at the expense of the presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald J. Trump, at the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington on Saturday. \u201cOne candidate\u2019s too old and mentally unfit to be president,\u201d Mr. Biden said. \u201cThe other guy\u2019s me.\u201d As Mr. Biden, 81, has defended<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46517,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manitimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46516"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manitimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manitimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manitimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manitimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/manitimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manitimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manitimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manitimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manitimes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}