Risky presidential jokes

“It’s an honor to speak at the nation’s premier superspreader event today,” said comedian Trevor Noah, welcoming the Government Correspondents’ annual gala dinner. Up to 2,600 guests were gathered in the ballroom of the Hilton hotel in Washington – all had to present proof of vaccination and negative tests. In keeping with the comedy tradition of the hundred-year-old event, Noah asked, “Seriously guys, what are we doing here,” and does anyone remember the Gridiron Press Association dinner in early April? Around eighty guests were infected with the corona virus.

The White House had at least made arrangements for the party on Saturday. President Joe Biden delivered a humorous speech as planned, but did not attend the actual meal. According to media reports, however, he mingled with the visitors for around an hour without a protective mask. Biden drew a few laughs as he delivered the traditional jokes previously collated among White House staff. Biden said he could understand that there hadn’t been a president at the event for a long time. “We finally had a terrible plague and then Covid for two more years!” he joked, referring to his predecessor Donald Trump.

Biden also made fun of his own age: He could remember Calvin Coolidge being the first president to attend the correspondents’ dinner in 1924. He also struck a slightly more serious tone when he said he expected opposition to his political agenda – albeit more from Republicans. That was a dig at his inner-party opponents. Referring to Noah, Biden also alluded to the Putin regime in Russia: “Now you can fool the President of the United States,” he said. “And unlike in Moscow, they don’t go to jail for it.”

Trump preferred to hold his own event

With Biden, a president returned to the lectern at the gala for the first time since Barack Obama. Trump had always rejected the correspondents during his tenure, but before that he had been invited as a guest more often. As President, Trump had dubbed the dinner “boring” and preferred to hold one of his mass events on the same evening in 2019. In the past two years, the pandemic had interrupted the tradition.

Journalists are invited to the event to report from the White House for national and some regional media; The organizer is your professional association. Above all, however, personalities from politics, business and culture take part – as well as from the numerous lobby groups and think tanks in the capital. The gala, which some jokingly call the “nerd prom,” has been around since 1921. Presidents have attended since 1924. Until 1962, the correspondents’ dinner was a men’s party only.

Helen Thomas, the first woman to report from the White House, convinced then-President John F. Kennedy that this had to change. Women were admitted after Kennedy threatened to stay away from the event. Celebrities lent their sparkle to the celebration early on – Frank Sinatra to Duke Ellington to Barbara Streisand made appearances on the stage. This time around, Kim Kardashian, Brooke Shieldds and Drew Barrymore were on the guest list. It has also been common since the 1980s for a comedian to poke fun at the government.

Humor with political intent

The event is famous for the fact that politicians say things here – less spontaneously than staged – that they would not say otherwise. The humor often also has a political purpose. Ronald Reagan once joked about the Soviet Union and wanted to demonstrate the cultural superiority of western democracies.

Barack Obama, on the other hand, was unsuccessful in the long run in 2011 when he tried to disavow his eventual successor, Donald Trump. At the time, Trump had spread the lie that the President was not born in America. At the gala, Obama had his birth certificate projected onto the screen, accompanied by the Hulk Hogan theme song “Real American,” and the President joked, “Nobody’s prouder and happier that we’re finally getting rid of this birth certificate thing than The Donald.” Trump can now finally turn to really important questions, such as whether the moon landing was fake or what is going on in the (supposed alien research center) Roswell. Many speculated at the time that Trump was so annoyed by the public humiliation that he now really wanted to be president.

The mood at the gala was cheerful again this Saturday – despite the war in Ukraine. And for one evening, the other numerous problems of the Biden administration were not in the foreground either. The Democrats are struggling with falling poll numbers, American fears of an economic crisis and the blocking of major political projects by the Republicans in Congress. According to many experts, the fear that the slim majority of the Democrats could be lost in the midterm elections in November is well founded.

Not only Trevor Noah made it clear in his welcome that the Corona crisis is not over either. Biden’s Corona chief advisor Anthony Fauci had previously reminded the participants (and the 79-year-old president) that the cheerful return to tradition entailed a risk: he had announced that he would not be celebrating himself – after all, he was 81 years old and at an increased risk for a severe course of the disease.