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.
“One candidate’s too old and mentally unfit to be president,” Mr. Biden said. “The other guy’s me.”
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.
“I’m running against the same guy that I beat in 2020 but don’t tell him,” Mr. Biden said. “He thinks he’s running against Barack Obama. That’s what he said.”
It was Mr. Biden’s 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.
Mr. Biden didn’t 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.
“I heard House Republicans were going to do a skit tonight, but they couldn’t get a speaker,” he said, referring to the drawn-out election processes last year for Speakers Mike Johnson and Kevin McCarthy.