WASHINGTON -- The annual White House press corps gala returned Saturday night along with the roasting of Washington, the journalists who cover it and the man at the helm: President Joe Biden.
The White House Correspondents' Association dinner, which the pandemic sidelined in 2020 and 2021, returned with Biden as the first president in six years to accept an invitation. Donald Trump, who at times branded the media as "the enemy of the people," shunned the event while in office.
"Just imagine if my predecessor came to this dinner this year," Biden told an audience of 2,600, among them journalists, government officials and celebrities. "Now that would really have been a real coup."
The president took the opportunity to make light of the criticism he has faced in his 18 months in office and to take aim at his predecessor, the Republican Party and the members of the press.
"I'm really excited to be here tonight with the only group of Americans with a lower approval rating than I have," Biden said.
The night was filled with taped comedic skits including late-night TV hosts, comedians and Biden himself.
"The Daily Show" host Trevor Noah served as the headliner following Biden. Celebrities appeared as well: Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson walked the carpet, as did Brooke Shields and Caitlyn Jenner. The event drew a large swath of government officials and other prominent figures.
The dinner had its serious moments, too. It included tributes to pioneering journalists of color and to aspiring student reporters. The journalists who were detained, injured or killed while covering the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine were also honored.
Earlier in the night, in a return to some normalcy, journalists, government officials and celebrities paraded down the red carpet.
Biden's administration is looking to turn the page on the pandemic even as the virus remains a threat nationally and close to home. Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive last week, and Dr. Anthony Fauci skipped the dinner for health precautions.
After the recent Gridiron Club press dinner in Washington, dozens of attendees, including journalists and members of Congress and of Biden's Cabinet, tested positive for covid-19.
That raised questions about whether the 79-year-old Biden should have attended Saturday's dinner. The president planned to pass up the meal but turn up later for the program and wear a mask when he wasn't speaking. Instead, he went maskless while greeting award winners on the dais and smiled broadly throughout the evening.
The White House has stressed the abundance of the antiviral pill Paxlovid, which has been shown to reduce by 90% the severe outcomes from the virus among those at highest risk.
Still, press secretary Jen Psaki has said of Biden, "We want to be very clear that it is possible he could test positive for covid, just like any American."
The White House Correspondents' Association said it was requiring same-day antigen testing for its dinner attendees even before the Gridiron outbreak. It then added a vaccination requirement.
The U.S. is experiencing a covid-19 case spike from a subvariant of omicron, with confirmed infections rising to about 44,000 per day, up from 26,000 a month ago.
Despite the latest wave of covid-19 cases, virus deaths and hospitalizations are near, or at, pandemic lows, with the BA.2 variant proving less severe than earlier strains. About 300 people are dying in the U.S. each day from the virus, down from more than 2,600 earlier this year -- with about 1,600 hospitalizations per day, declining from a peak of more than 21,000 a day in January.
Psaki said Biden's decision to attend "does stand in stark contrast to his predecessor, who not only questioned the legitimacy of the press on a nearly daily basis, but also never attended the dinner."
The correspondents' dinner debuted in 1921. Three years later, Calvin Coolidge became the first president to attend -- and all have since, except for Trump. Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon didn't attend during every year of their presidencies, however, and Ronald Reagan, then recovering from an assassination attempt, missed the 1981 installment -- but he called in from Camp David.
Information for this article was contributed by Zeke Miller of The Associated Press.