President Biden talks gun control with Jimmy Kimmel for his first in ...

New York (CNN Business) President Joe Biden made his first in-person appearance on a late night talk show when he stopped by " Jimmy Kimmel Live! " Wednesday night.

Kimmel kicked off his interview with the President on Wednesday by saying that Biden is to "aviator sunglasses what Tom Cruise is to aviator sunglasses."

Then Kimmel and President Biden didn't waste anytime jumping right into talking about politics with regard to gun control

Kimmel asked the President why he won't take more executive action regarding gun violence.

"Trump passed those out like Halloween candy," Kimmel said of executive orders.

Biden explained to Kimmel that he has issued executive orders "within the power of the presidency" regarding guns.

"But what I don't want to do, and I'm not being facetious, I don't want to emulate Trump's abuse of the constitution," Biden told Kimmel. "I often get asked, 'look the Republicans don't play it square, why do you play it square?' Well, guess what? If we do the same thing they do, our democracy will literally be in jeopardy."

Kimmel pushed back a bit at this assertion saying, "it's like you're playing Monopoly with somebody who won't pass 'Go' and won't follow any of the rules."

"How do you ever make any progress if they're not following the rules?" Kimmel asked.

Biden then interjected.

"You got to send them to jail," he said, referencing the square in the board game.

Biden and Kimmel also spoke about inflation, which Biden called "the bane of our existence." The President mentioned that it's mostly in food and gasoline.

"That's what kills you because it's a little billboard telling everyone how expensive everything is," Kimmel said. "If Donald Trump leaves one of those Sharpies over for you, you could maybe change the price on that, you know?"

Twitter TWTR Kimmel first announced Biden's appearance viaSunday night, and the interview caused some commotion.

"Last night we announced that our President, Joe Biden, would be stopping by," Kimmel said on Monday's show. "He will be here, which is nice, because it gives the gang at Fox News something to scream about all week."

Kimmel then showed a clip of Fox Business host Dagen McDowell saying that the interview takes place in the "land of insanity in which we all live."

"Oh, I see. What I do is insane. You guys telling us we should arm P.E. teachers to protect kids. That makes sense," he said.

Kimmel then used some late night language to make his point even further.

"Tucker Carlson giving Vladmir Putin a reach around every other night, sane," he said. "President on a late night talk show, insane. Got it."

Kimmel's evolution

Having Biden join Kimmel, in particular, may be a savvy move by the White House. Kimmel has used his platform to make emotional stands about issues core to progressives' values, including Obamacare and gun control.

It's quite the evolution for Kimmel who started his career as the raunchy host of Comedy Central's "The Man Show" before writing songs about "f**king Ben Affleck" and reading Mean Tweets on the ABC late night show.

But Kimmel's entry into the political world was not much of a choice for the comedian. Many of the issues that Kimmel has taken on are personal for him.

The reason that Kimmel has been able to stand out as this late night voice of the people is because "Kimmel simply sounds like a regular guy making reasonable points," according to Bill Carter, a CNN analyst who has written multiple books about late-night TV.

"Probably more than any other current late-night host, Kimmel projects solid working-class and family values," Carter said. "He seems to most viewers a guy who could share a beer and slice of pizza with anybody."

Carter added that when Kimmel is on "the edge of emotional breakdown over his fears for his newborn son, or the massacre of innocent people in his hometown," it doesn't come across to most viewers as "Hollywood activism." Instead, "it comes across as human activism," he wrote.

Biden's new strategy

As for Biden, the reason for the appearance is clear: it helps humanize him to voters and get his message across to millions.

Biden and his advisers have been frustrated in recent months as their attempts to get the President's message to break through to voters have been less than successful. CNN reported last week that the White House is looking for more opportunities to show off Biden's personality outside of the staid set-piece speeches that have mostly marked their public relations strategy in the initial stage of his presidency, giving him little opportunity for the unscripted moments that have become a core part of his political identity over his long career.

The Kimmel appearance is a chance for him to show off the retail politician traits he's honed during his more than 50 years in politics — traits he's not often been able to use due to a lack of interaction with real voters driven first by the Covid-19 pandemic and then a series of crises that have kept him at the White House.

-- CNN's Kyle Feldscher contributed to this report

Joe Biden set to make first late-night TV appearance as president on ...

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is getting ready for his first late-night TV appearance since taking office.

Biden is set to appear Friday on NBC's "The Tonight Show" with comedian Jimmy Fallon. Biden will appear virtually; the White House didn't say where he will be when he tapes the segment.

Biden has made two previous appearances on the show. He bantered with Fallon in April 2020, a week before he became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, and in September 2016, toward the end of his eight years as vice president.

More:Joe and Jill Biden's first White House Christmas theme is inspired by people they met across the U.S.

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More:First lady Jill Biden covers Vogue, talks 'magical quality' of White House living

In late November, the Bidens revealed the theme of their first White House Christmas. First lady Jill Biden unveiled decorations matching the theme on Nov. 29, said to be inspired by people the couple met as they traveled the country this year.

“The things we hold sacred unite us and transcend distance, time, and even the constraints of a pandemic: faith, family, and friendship; a love of the arts, learning, and nature; gratitude, service, and community; unity and peace,” the Bidens write in a commemorative 2021 White House holiday guidebook. “These are the gifts that tie together the heart strings of our lives. These are the gifts from the heart.”

The decor featured a gigantic gingerbread White House that recognizes front-line workers who persevered through the coronavirus pandemic, while the official Christmas tree — an 18-foot-tall (5.5-meter tall) Fraser fir — celebrates the gifts of peace and unity, the White House said.

More:'SNL': Jason Sudeikis returns as the 'ghost' of President Joe Biden's past

Biden is suffering from a steep drop in the polls and has been under pressure to engage more with the media.

He has been trying to improve his standing with the public by traveling around the country to promote a $1 trillion infrastructure law, money that will be used to repair roads and bridges and lay down high-speed internet across the country.

The president also has been trying to rally public support for a separate social welfare and climate bill that has stalled in the Senate.

Biden in Uvalde, Texas: Confronting grief and calls to 'do something ...

(CNN) President Joe Biden on Sunday faced the grimly familiar task of comforting families after another mass shooting, this time at an elementary school in Texas , as a broken community -- and a weary nation -- grappled with an endless spate of gun violence.

Hearing anguished calls to "do something" as he emerged from a midday Mass in Uvalde, Biden told the crowd, "We will." But after a day of somber remembrance, it remained unclear whether or how a nation's grief would translate to meaningful steps to prevent future massacres.

Biden and first lady Jill Biden bore witness to periodic bursts of anger during their visit to Uvalde, where a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers last week. It was their second time in as many weeks mourning alongside families whose loved ones died in a mass shooting.

The Bidens' visit came amid news from the Justice Department that it's conducting a review of the botched law enforcement response to the Uvalde shooting , which Texas officials have described as punctuated with wrong decisions.

Their armored black limousine arrived to a makeshift memorial outside Robb Elementary School around 11:15 a.m. Central Time, pulling to a stop next to the sea of flowers, stuffed animals and photos that has grown since the day of the massacre.

The first lady carried a large bouquet of white roses to place in front of the brick Robb Elementary School sign. The Bidens, both dressed in black, stood quietly for a moment in midday sun. The President made a sign of the cross and wiped away a tear.

After speaking with the school's principal and local officials, Biden and the first lady walked to a row of memorial wreaths, each marking one of the slain children or teachers. They touched cardboard cutouts of each one, their photos on the front circled by white flower garlands, in quiet observation.

President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden pay their respects at a makeshift memorial outside of Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Sunday.

The Bidens attended Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller invited children from the devastated community to sit at the front.

"Our response must be one of hope and healing," he said, urging the community to "resolve to support one another with respect for our differences." The choir sang "On Eagle's Wings."

Biden and the first lady spent the afternoon meeting privately with family members of the victims at Uvalde County Arena, and first responders at Garner Field, before returning to their home in Delaware.

An adviser traveling with the President said he hoped "to convey empathy and understanding of what an impossibly horrible moment this is for them" and "to offer some small piece of comfort, if that is possible."

It was a solemn task made more grueling by the serious failings of law enforcement who responded to Tuesday's shooting in Uvalde. And it came without promise of major legislative action to prevent further carnage, though a bipartisan group of lawmakers have begun talks to identify areas of potential action.

The frustrations of an angry public could be felt at the memorial site. Some onlookers awaiting Biden began shouting when Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott arrived to accompany the President.

"Please Governor Abbott, help Uvalde County," one man was shouting. "We need change. Our children don't deserve this."

As Biden was departing, similar cries for help could be heard before he stepped into his vehicle.

JUST WATCHED Acts of kindness lift up Uvalde community after mass shooting Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Acts of kindness lift up Uvalde community after mass shooting 03:35

A day before his visit, Biden spoke to the agony of the parents he would be meeting Sunday.

"I'll be heading to Uvalde, Texas, to speak to those families. As I speak, those parents are literally preparing to bury their children, in the United States of America, bury their children. There is too much violence, too much fear, too much grief," Biden told graduates Saturday at the University of Delaware commencement ceremony.

For Biden, the trip represented a somber duty to join grieving families in their darkest moments. He often draws upon his own experience of losing two children -- a young daughter to a car crash and his adult son to brain cancer -- to console fellow parents.

"To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. There's a hollowness in your chest, and you feel like you're being sucked into it and never going to be able to get out. It's suffocating. And it's never quite the same," Biden said the night of the shooting, speaking from the Roosevelt Room shortly after returning from a two-country visit to Asia.

President Joe Biden embraces Mandy Gutierrez, the principal of Robb Elementary School, as he and first lady Jill Biden visit Uvalde, Texas, on Sunday.

In Uvalde, a community shattered by last week's shooting, many came to watch the President and first lady make their way through the memorial site.

"I think President Biden making an appearance here is good. It's in order. That's what we need. We need the leader of the free world to be here, and sympathize and empathize with us," said Ronald Garza, an Uvalde County Commissioner, on CNN.

The Bidens' visit to Texas came 12 days after the couple traveled to Buffalo, New York , to visit the site of a racist massacre at a grocery store. That shooting left 10 people dead. Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to the city on Saturday to attend the funeral for 86-year-old Ruth Whitfield, the oldest victim of the attack.

"This is a moment that requires all good people who are loving people to just say we will not stand for this. Enough is enough," Harris said before laying a bouquet at a memorial outside the Tops Friendly Markets store where the shooting occurred May 14. As she left, Harris issued a call to ban assault weapons like the ones used to kill in Uvalde and Buffalo.

The dual visits by the President and vice president to communities afflicted by mass murder were a striking reminder of the scourge of gun violence consuming the nation. Biden, who has spent much of his career working to enact stricter gun laws, again called for action this week.

But he stopped short of demanding Congress pass any specific bill; the White House says it is up to Democratic leaders in the Senate to determine how to proceed on potential legislation. And he hasn't named a gun violence task force beyond officials already inside the administration.

Biden and his aides also concede there is little more he can achieve through executive action that could prevent the types of massacres that now occur with gruesome frequency.

On Sunday, Sen. Dick Durbin, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he sensed a "different feeling," among his colleagues in Congress when it comes to the possibility of passing gun control measures in the wake of the Uvalde shooting. But the Illinois Democrat suggested to CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" that if anything passed, it would be limited in scope due to the need to compromise with Republicans.

In Texas, Biden also confronted harrowing accounts of the shooting that even state law enforcement officials said amounted to a failing by police. The decision by responding officers not to enter the classroom where the shooting occurred -- despite 911 calls from students pleading for help -- leaves open the question of whether some lives could have been saved.

The White House has said it will not prejudge an investigation into the actions of police. But the timeline disclosures, made Friday during a harrowing news conference in Uvalde, only added to the sense of anguish Biden confronted during his visit.

This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

3 key takeaways from Biden's Summit of the Americas | CNN Politics

Los Angeles (CNN) In an odd twist of scheduling, President Joe Biden was meeting here Thursday with a leader who's amplified conspiracy theories the very same hour that startling new details emerged about the conspiracy to deny him the presidency.

Biden had for months been averse to engaging Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, who US officials fear is parroting former President Donald Trump's lies about voter fraud to undermine Brazil's system ahead of his own reelection bid this fall.

But in order to lure him to Los Angeles for a summit of regional leaders that was plagued by boycotts, Biden agreed to a one-on-one meeting.

And so, on Thursday afternoon, Biden found himself in a conference room alongside a man who, two days earlier, had deemed his 2020 victory "suspicious." Meanwhile, back in Washington, the House committee investigating attempts to overturn that election was putting the finishing touches on its blockbuster public hearing

"I'm anxious to hear what's on your mind and talk about whatever you want to talk about," Biden told Bolsonaro somewhat obliquely before their meeting. "I'd like to listen as well as raise a few issues that are of, I think, mutual interest to us."

Biden's meeting with Bolsonaro demonstrated the lengths he was willing to go to in order to offer a unified picture of the Western Hemisphere at a conference where disunity was often on display. And its coincidental timing alongside the House hearing on the events of January 6, 2021 -- where the autocratic tendencies of the previous US President were exposed in sometimes-shocking fashion -- laid bare the difficulty in using America's example to promote democracy in an increasingly fractured region.

Biden was able to secure some important commitments this week, including an agreement on migration that came together at the last minute. But questions over attendance and the region's disparate priorities were still on ample display. And Biden's political struggles were never far from the surface.

Here are three takeaways from this week's Summit of the Americas.

Trump lingers

Trump lingered over this week's summit in Southern California like the June gloom, from his Brazilian protégé to the hearing exposing his disinformation scheme to the persistent questions about American commitment in a region he mostly ignored.

Biden actively and explicitly worked to convince his counterparts that he was adopting his own, different approach.

"I think that there's a means by which we can maybe undo some of the damage done the previous four years, when it wasn't very much taken seriously -- the relationships," he said while meeting with leaders from the Caribbean.

A little while later, he said during the summit's opening plenary session that he wanted to discuss "proposals that I think are a far cry from what we saw from our previous American administration."

This week's summit amounted to the type of presidential work Trump found little use for during his time in office. He skipped the Summit of the Americas when he was in office and complained to his aides about attending the G7 and G20 meetings, questioning their point.

Even President Barack Obama sometimes dreaded the kind of massive summit where he was left to sit for hours listening to endless speeches by other world leaders. He was often seen chomping away on nicotine gum as he took his seat.

There was little question that Biden would reverse that trend. He said this week that he had often reminded Obama that "all politics is personal" — and that actually accomplishing anything required showing up in person.

"It makes a difference when you get to know someone," he said at the start of a dinner he hosted in the Getty Villa's Mediterranean gardens, near Malibu. "Whether you agree or not, it makes a difference to look in their eyes and understand a little bit more what's in their heart."

Biden was in fact so absorbed in meeting his fellow leaders that he missed Thursday night's January 6 hearing in its entirety, despite telling the Canadian Prime Minister earlier in the day that the event would "occupy my country."

"Didn't have time," Biden said with a shrug when CNN asked whether he'd caught any of the coverage.

Questions of unity

Biden arrived in Los Angeles hoping to use new economic and migration announcements to demonstrate cohesion in a region of fractured politics and, at times, entrenched skepticism of the United States.

And by the time the summit was over, 20 leaders had signed on to an agreement that offers a road map for handling the region's large migration flows, perhaps the most significant accomplishment of a gathering whose relevance many had questioned ahead of time.

Yet the decision of several leaders to boycott the summit, including the top officials from Mexico and three Central American countries the US has worked hard to cultivate, remained a visible sticking point. They refused to attend because Biden declined to extend invitations to the autocratic leaders of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Heading into the summit, White House officials were frustrated that the drama over the participants appeared to be obscuring the important issues at stake. Yet when it came time for the leaders to gather inside the Los Angeles Convention Center, the discord was plain.

And on Friday evening, first lady Jill Biden complained that the news coverage of her husband had been "so unfair."

"Every leader came up to Joe and said what a difference you've made and say how we can work together," she told Democratic donors in a backyard in Brentwood.

As Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris watched from mere feet away, Belize's Prime Minister called it "inexcusable" that all the countries of the Americas had not been invited. He said the power of the summit was "diminished" by their absence.

Argentine President Alberto Fernández said during a speech later in the program that the rules of future summits should be changed to prevent nations from being excluded. "We definitely would have wished for a different Summit of the Americas. The silence of those who were absent is calling to us," he added.

The remarks did not come as a surprise to US officials, who were aware of the disagreements beforehand and anticipated that some leaders would air them publicly. Before the summit, some Biden aides suggested there would be a certain amount of political posturing among leaders who have domestic audiences that are often skeptical of the United States.

And as he left the stage, Fernández and Biden shared a friendly handshake, a sign that behind the scenes things were not as tense as they appeared.

"Notwithstanding the disagreements, think back to what we heard today," Biden said after sitting through his counterparts' speeches. "We heard almost total agreement on the substantive things that we should be doing."

Fraught politics

In the land of $7-per-gallon gasoline, Biden was never far from his biggest political liability. And while foreign policy can sometimes act as an escape hatch for politically imperiled presidents, a weakened US leader is not helped by boycotts and public shaming from his global counterparts.

Many of the problems Biden hoped to address at his summit are potent political problems as well, including large flows of migrants on the southern border and inflation made worse by unreliable supply chains.

During a pause from his summit hosting duties, Biden made a detour to the Port of Los Angeles to address what his team views as the most pressing current issue: high prices for everything from gas to groceries.

He assigned blame for rising costs to Russia, oil companies, shipping conglomerates and Republicans, insisting he is doing what he can to tame inflation as new numbers showed prices accelerating last month.

To coincide with his trip West, Biden's aides booked an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel's late-night talk show , often viewed as an opportunity to show off a politician's lighter side.

Yet Biden's appearance was a mostly serious interview on gun control and abortion rights, two other intractable issues on which the President has few options to act alone, even as his most ardent supporters demand he do so.

"I don't want to emulate Trump's abuse of the Constitution, constitutional authority," Biden told Kimmel on Wednesday after the late-night host asked why he couldn't issue an executive order like Trump, who "handed them out like candy."

When Kimmel asked how you play Monopoly when one side "won't pass go" or play by the rules, Biden said: "You got to send 'em to jail."

Beneath Biden's struggle to break through is a deeper dysfunction ...

(CNN) Being familiar never makes the feeling less dreadful: White House aides emailing each other during one of President Joe Biden's stops on the road, tracking who's covering what he's saying, which TV channels are taking the speech live -- and realizing a number of times that the answer was none.

"You are thinking," said one person familiar, "why are we doing this?"

Biden and his inner circle get weekly readouts of the metrics on local newspaper coverage of his speeches, how long and for what he was covered on cable, but also videos that staff post on Twitter and other social media interactions. Those reports go on the piles with internal memos from pollsters saying Biden isn't breaking through in traditional news outlets and that the people who are engaged are mostly voters who've already made up their minds.

But beneath this struggle to break through is a deeper dysfunction calcified among aides who largely started working together only through Zoom screens and still struggle to get in rhythm. They're still finding it hard to grasp how much their political standing has changed over the last year, and there's a divide between most of the White House staff and the inner circle who have been around Biden for longer than most of the rest of that staff has been alive. In an email to CNN, White House spokesman Andrew Bates said, "That is not the dynamic in the White House."

At the center is a president still trying to calibrate himself to the office. The country is pulling itself apart, pandemic infections keep coming, inflation keeps rising, a new crisis on top of new crisis arrives daily and Biden can't see a way to address that while also being the looser, happier, more sympathetic, lovingly Onion-parody inspiring, aviator-wearing, vanilla chip cone-licking guy -- an image that was the core of why he got elected in the first place.

"He has to speak to very serious things," explained one White House aide, "and you can't do that getting ice cream."

Aides regularly talk about how little traction they're getting from one-off Biden appearances or events and then -- whether on inflation, the baby formula shortage or mass shootings or the other crises landing on Biden's desk -- he's often left looking like he's in a reactive crouch on the issues that matter most to voters rather than setting the agenda. Sometimes clipped moments from those speeches that the White House puts out on social media generate huge traffic but, at least as often, moments from the President appearing to be caught off-guard go viral on their own.

Aides and allies worry that the West Wing is making the same mistakes as they tout the White House's big pivot to inflation -- which they know is a defining issue for the midterms -- using all the methods Biden and his top advisers keep going back to: A Wall Street Journal op-ed, a basic photo-op Oval Office meeting with the Federal Reserve chairman and Treasury secretary, dispatching Cabinet secretaries for short TV interviews.

Biden's speech on Thursday night calling for real action on new gun control laws was a departure from many of his recent appearances, complete with a carefully stage managed line up of mournful candles in glass lining his walkway into the East Room.

But even with his intense delivery and repeated return to the word "Enough" and laying out of an aspirational agenda that has little chance in Congress, despite broad support among many Americans outside of Washington, he was more than anything reacting to how the conversation had already taken shape without him. And then, less than an hour after he was done issuing his call to action, Biden left for an early weekend at his beach house in Delaware, without much of a public schedule for days.

The President is a 79-year-old man who still thinks in terms of newspaper front pages and primetime TV programs, surrounded by not-quite-as-senior aides in senior positions with the same late 1990s media diet. Lifelong habits don't tend to fade when people get to their desks in the West Wing.

"These numbers that get put up by 'soft media,'" a senior adviser put it to others on staff recently, using a term meant to brush off all platforms that aren't older than Biden's grandkids, "don't feel as real."

It's not just the kind of news Biden consumes, according to CNN's conversations with 14 White House aides and other Democrats in close touch with the White House. After 50 years of looking up to the Oval Office, televised speeches and front-page stories are how he thinks of a president making news, still conceiving of the presidency as a sort of Rooseveltian ideal where he can lay what's happening for an audience gathered around to hear from a commander-in-chief whose schedule keeps getting cleared for him to write, edit and review each set of remarks.

"A speech is presidential, remarks are presidential. His view is if he can just explain to people what's going on and why, that people will understand," said one person familiar with Biden's thinking.

Finger-pointing inside the White House

Biden aides cite a range of other factors -- a political press corps still hooked on Trump-style melodrama, a news environment dominated by Ukraine and pandemic, a Secret Service buffer that limits what Biden can do, lingering anxiety that he'll catch Covid-19 and possibly become really sick.

That's in between pointing fingers at each other for whose fault it is. They have the same internal meetings over and over, insisting that they need to change up their whole approach to how they're using Biden -- and then each time watch as nothing changes.

Older aides dismiss the younger aides as being too caught up in the tweet-by-tweet thinking they say lost the 2020 election for everyone else. Younger aides give up -- what's the point of working up innovative ideas, they ask themselves, if the ideas constantly get knocked down and the aides get looked down on for suggesting them?

Responding to a question about the President's older media habits, Bates noted the weekly time set aside on the President's schedule for creating digital content and the over 70 people on staff who help create it and manage his various accounts, as well as two interviews in the past few months with online-only creators.

"The President has a well-rounded strategy that combines putting unprecedented resources into digital engagement, speeches that provide many of his most powerful moments, and person-to-person interactions that showcase important qualities like his empathy," Bates said.

Biden did more traveling around the country during May than in any month of his presidency so far. But nearly every stop was the same toe-touch, take-a-factory-tour-then-give-a-speech-then-back-on-Air Force One routine, one-off events with a couple of mournful condolence trips to Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, added.

Nothing happened that wasn't on script. Nothing that's not fully planned.

When they're on message, aides will take solace in driving local news coverage, despite the events not registering outside of whatever media market he lands in. When they're being frank, they acknowledge that they've been slow to realize that doing single events on any topic never seems to make much of an impact.

Speeches that have broken through -- like the President's sorrow-filled statement delivered while the bodies were still being identified in Uvalde -- are rarely because of either the words themselves or the delivery.

It's because Biden himself shines through, like when he, a father who's buried two of his own children, talked about the parents in Texas having parts of their souls ripped away, or on his condolence visit a few days later when he placed his hand on each murdered student's oversized photo.

Aides still figuring out the best way to present the President

JUST WATCHED Biden tells CNN's Kaitlan Collins he didn't know until April the baby formula shortage would be so serious Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Biden tells CNN's Kaitlan Collins he didn't know until April the baby formula shortage would be so serious 03:29

Outside of those consoler-in-chief moments, Biden and aides know they're not doing much to make him empathetic.

He'll talk about how he feels families' struggles over inflation and gas prices . He'll talk about how he knows about difficulties of the pandemic and the baby formula shortage. And then aides will talk about how he talked about it.

They'll tell each other he doesn't have enough time in his schedule. Then they'll say, actually, no, he is doing the kind of events that should resonate, just no one is giving him credit.

They'll note that the structure of the White House staff -- down to the physical arrangement of the offices, so that the press aides are all clustered together in the only accessible part of the West Wing -- is around interactions with traditional media outlets, even as viewership and readership declines.

They'll say he's answering reporters' questions whenever he's asked, while nixing interview requests to avoid the hours of prep and possible clean-up. They'll acknowledge that Biden himself feels shut off enough that he's quietly had a half-dozen sessions with favored writers since the fall, like last month's lunch with the New York Times' Tom Friedman, in which the columnist shared his own impressions of Biden's off-the-record thoughts, with only the tuna sandwich, fruit bowl and milkshake approved for publication.

In a January memo, White House chief of staff Ron Klain offered a compromise plan, to have Biden do one town hall each month to at least grab some unscripted moments and media exposure. That got sucked into the maw of blaming and dysfunction like so much else: Some aides embraced the idea for at least shaking things up a little, some mocked it for being an outdated idea, some complained that the logistics of making that happen would be impossibly time consuming.

In the end, not a single town hall was scheduled. A White House aide said Wednesday that now more town halls are expected in the near future.

Conducting the presidency 'from the set of Jeopardy'

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The most effective way Biden aides found to convince people the President isn't the doddering right-wing media caricature is when people see him in action, they'll say in meetings and emails and memos. And the best way to convince voters that he's taking action on a list of complaints, which is growing longer almost by the week, is to show him actually doing things.

Those little moments which have always been his magic, the retail politics virtuosity of finding the humanity in almost anyone he talks to and having them find the humanity in him -- that's what they need more of, they say. And anyway, that's what makes him the happiest.

Yet Biden keeps showing up behind the same podiums surrounded by the same big screens, talking from a remove about what he feels and what he wants to do about it. He's coming across disconnected, aides have acknowledged to allies in Congress and beyond. And then, they say, the same events keep getting planned.

"World's most interactive man," sighed one person familiar with White House operations after one of the recent events, "and we're going to have him conduct the presidency from the set of Jeopardy."

Excited as White House aides were by the appearance by the K-pop superstars BTS showing up at the daily press briefing on Tuesday, with more than 180,000 people watching the live stream at one point and fans pressed up against the security gates asking what the singers smelled like, they also acknowledged the downside some wish would be more instructive: That brief BTS visit will likely be seen more than anything Biden will do for weeks.

'He has so much more to offer'

What they agree on in the White House -- at least recently -- is that Biden's chances of breaking through go up massively the more he picks fights with Republicans.

They also agree that they're being held back by the President's own reluctance to hit harder, steeped in both his attempt to push America back to what he insists can't be a bygone era of cooperation and his sense that a president shouldn't get petty.

When he said at the beginning of May that he "never anticipated" that the Trump-style politics would dominate the Republican Party, he was mocked for seeming clueless about a political atmosphere that he spent his whole campaign calling "a battle for the soul of America."

When he said over Memorial Day weekend that he counted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Texas Sen. John Cornyn as "rational Republicans" whom he could get an agreement with on new gun laws, the forehead smacks among staff and other involved Democrats echoed around the Tidal Basin.

On assault weapons and other priorities, that "do something!" anger is bubbling throughout Biden's base, but what voters are getting back instead is what the President would call a frank assessment that there's not much he actually can do.

Aides are facing their own constraints, and not just from the national security officials who've assessed that Biden can't go on TikTok because of security concerns around the Chinese government's stake in the company.

Lawyers in the White House Counsel's Office, continually on edge over potential violations of the Hatch Act prohibitions around mixing politics and government, needed to review Biden's new "ultra MAGA" line in order for government-salaried aides to be allowed to repeat it, since having them talk about Donald Trump by name was deemed too political. "Congressional Republicans" was allowed for official statements because the term refers to a specific target, but using "Republicans" generally was also deemed too political.

Many in the West Wing are counting on the recent return of Anita Dunn, who helped both manage Biden and bring a directed sense of mission to the staff during an often otherwise haphazard presidential campaign. She'll be able to shake the President from patterns that have become ingrained, they believe, and to get everyone else organized ahead of the midterms around a clearer, more connected sense of mission.

A White House aide cited stats to show just how much aides have been able to do with Biden's online presence when they can get everyone on the same page. The video Biden shot in the Oval Office with BTS to talk about anti-Asian hate crimes racked up over 50 million views in the first 24 hours, the President's mental health chat with actress Selena Gomez passed 5 million, Jimmy Fallon at the Easter Egg Roll passed 4 million. Pop star Olivia Rodrigo's video with Biden on vaccines is at over 100 million views, but even a less snazzy YouTube town hall on vaccines is over 2 million views.

The irony, according to a number of top Democrats, is that with the country still battered and shaken from politics, the pandemic, the wobbly economy and just about everything else from the last few years, Joe Biden's persona has all the pieces to meet the moment -- if he came out to meet it.

He's the empathetic guy. He's the middle-class guy. He's the come together and work it out guy.

So, while some Democrats in tight races have started distancing themselves from Biden, others have kept asking aides to get more -- so long as he doesn't bring his podium along for the trip.

Rep. Dean Phillips, a Democratic congressman from Minnesota working to hold onto his seat in the fall, said that he's struck by how much of a difference there was between the distant Biden whom he knows his constituents are seeing every day and the engaged President he talked with on Air Force One at the end of April, flying to the Land of 10,000 Lakes to attend the memorial service for Walter Mondale.

"I wish every American could have been with us because he was so engaging, empathetic, resolute, and kind. Those are his superpowers," Phillips said.

"It astounds and disappoints me that the magic of the tools of that office are being so under-utilized. He's the grandfather of the country at a time we need one more than ever. He should be giving fireside chats, speaking to -- and hearing from -- Americans directly about their concerns and anxieties. He has so much more to offer America than he has been able to share, and I still hope the country gets to see and feel what I did during that hour with him."

With help from Kim Kardashian, Joe Biden made the White House ...

WASHINGTON – The energy changed any time Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson walked into a room.

The "It" couple turned every head as they made their red carpet debut Saturday at the 2022 White House Correspondents' Dinner, Washington's biggest gathering of top politicians, journalists and celebrity guests. Even big names like Gayle King and Drew Barrymore were asked to move on the red carpet once the couple arrived.

"We're about to step on the red carpet and they go, 'Gayle, Drew, move! Move! Kete are here,' " King recounted onstage during the dinner.

Kardashian and Davidson, guests of Disney/ABC, posed for photographers before making a quick getaway, avoiding any media interviews. So did Brooke Shields, Meghan McCain, "Jeopardy!" champ Amy Schneider and Miranda Kerr.

White House Correspondents' Dinner: President Joe Biden roasts President Donald Trump and himself at journalism dinner

But plenty of stars did stop for interviews, including Martha Stewart, Fran Drescher, Billy Eichner, Chris Tucker, Jason Isaacs, Sophia Bush, Fat Joe, Evan Mock, Kyla Pratt and Roy Wood Jr. – the latter showing support for his "Daily Show" boss and the evening's host, Trevor Noah.

"The last person that needs any tips on comedy on tough topics in front of tough people is Trevor Noah," Wood told USA TODAY on the red carpet. "I think he'll be great."

In what was the first in-person iteration of the event in two years and the first since 2016 that welcomed the sitting U.S. president, the WHCD (known affectionately around the beltway as "nerd prom"), is an annual event that honors reporters covering the White House and raises money for journalism scholarships.

Since the final WHCD of Barack Obama's presidency in 2016, the event hasn't lived up to its reputation as D.C.'s biggest celebrity night of the year – until now.

"It's so nice to be in person and see everybody," King told USA TODAY. "Am I worried about COVID? Yes. But it's just good to be around human beings."

After a pandemic and an anti-press presidency with little A-list star support, D.C.’s big night of schmoozing with journalists and celebrities returned to its former glory, even with lingering COVID-19 concerns.

Especially after last month's Gridiron Club dinner in D.C. was dubbed a "superspreader" event, COVID safety was a hot topic among the roughly 2,600 attendees. (Noah joked attendees should have known not to come when Dr. Anthony Fauci declined his invite, but "Pete Davidson thinks it's OK.")

"Although everyone has been checked for vaccines, it's still an odd sensation to be (among) thousands of people milling around like sardines," "Good Sam" actor and "Harry Potter" alum Isaacs told USA TODAY on the red carpet.

Though a celebrity of sorts himself, President Donald Trump didn't exactly bring the star support with him to the nation's capital. He declined to attend the event during his presidency; few celebrities attended the dinner. Hollywood's big stars tend to lean left, and if President Joe Biden's star-studded inauguration and subsequent visits from Olivia Rodrigo, Angelina Jolie, Ciara and the Jonas Brothers were any indication, the entertainment industry and the White House's relationship is back.

"It's a very strange mix of D.C. and Hollywood, a bit absurd – very American in that way," Eichner told USA TODAY of the WHCD. "But I actually do think for better or worse … people who have influence over the culture can help push the country forward. Often, we've been ahead of the curve culturally, we've been ahead of it politically in this country, and so I'm proud to be a part of that. Mingling like this can be productive if it's used in the right way."

President Joe Biden eyes James Corden's late-night gig

Biden took the stage at dinner, taking some playful – and sometimes not so playful – jabs at Trump, news outlets and his Republican opponents. He also gave a nod to late-night host James Corden, who appeared in a pre-taped sketch with Biden and press secretary Jen Psaki, just days after confirming he'd step down as "Late Late Show" host next year.

"The good news is, if all goes well, I have a real shot of replacing James Corden," Biden said, comparing the two: Both "great performers, going out on top after eight years on the job – sounds just about right to me."

Trevor Noah hopes he's 'going to be fine' after roasting Biden

Rarely does a comedian get the opportunity to look the sitting president in the eyes and poke fun at his administration – again, not something that's happened since Obama's final dinner in 2016.

Noah made up for lost time, roasting Meghan McCain, Kellyanne Conway, CNN+ and, yes, the president, who looked on and laughed vigorously at the jokes directed at him.

"You realize how amazing it is: In America, you have the right to seek the truth and speak the truth, even if it makes people in power uncomfortable," Noah concluded his speech. "I stood here tonight and I made fun of the president of the United States, and I'm going to be fine."

"I am going to be fine, right?" Noah feigned concern as he turned to the laughing president for confirmation.

Fact check: A look at Biden's first year in false claims - CNNPolitics

U.S. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, center, before a State of the Union address by U.S. President Joe Biden at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, March 1, 2022. Biden's first State of the Union address comes against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions placed on Russia by the U.S. and its allies.

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 06: Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump supporters gathered in the nation's capital today to protest the ratification of President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory over President Trump in the 2020 election. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 20: House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) talks with reporters during a news conference with House Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) (L) following a House Republican caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center on October 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. The GOP members of Congress were critical of the entire Democratic slate of legislation and accused them of being unwilling to compromise. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump speaks on May 28, 2022 in Casper, Wyoming. The rally is being held to support Harriet Hageman, Rep. Liz Cheneys primary challenger in Wyoming.

The total number of false claims uttered by President Joe Biden in his first year in office is in the dozens compared to then-President Donald Trump, who delivered well over 1,000 total false claims in his own first year and more than 3,000 the next year. CNN's Daniel Dale reports.

Washington CNN —

When President Joe Biden passingly said in a voting rights speech last week that he had been “arrested” in the context of the civil rights movement – even suggesting this had happened more than once – it was a classic Biden false claim: an anecdote about his past for which there is no evidence, prompted by a decision to ad-lib rather than stick to a prepared text, resulting in easily avoidable questions about his honesty.

Biden’s imaginary or embellished stories about his own history were the most memorable falsehoods of his first year in office. They were not, however, the only ones.

The President also made multiple false claims about important policy matters, notably including three subjects that occupied much of his time: the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the economy and the Covid-19 pandemic.

And Biden was incorrect on numerous occasions when ad-libbing about a wide assortment of facts and figures – sometimes in a way that appeared inadvertent, but other times in a way that helped him make a political point.

Unlike his uniquely dishonest predecessor, Biden did not bury fact-checkers in a daily avalanche of serial falseness. Biden never came close to making a dozen false claims in a single speech, let alone five dozen false claims in one address, as Trump once did. In fact, the total number of Biden false claims so far is in the dozens, while Trump delivered well over 1,000 total false claims in his own first year and more than 3,000 the next year.

So Biden is no Trump. With that said, dozens of false claims from the President of the United States is not nothing. And considering that Biden added dozens more claims that were misleading or lacking in important context, he provided more than enough material to keep fact-checkers on their toes.

Here is a roundup of Biden’s first year in inaccuracy. The White House declined to comment for this article; it has previously commented for individual fact checks on some of the false claims we are discussing again below.

False claims about his own past

Biden made a series of claims about his own past that were just not true. It was these easy-to-understand, hard-to-defend personal falsehoods – more than his false claims about complex policy issues or obscure statistics, which supporters could more easily dismiss as good-faith errors – that provided the best ammunition for opponents looking to portray him as deceptive.

And like some of Trump’s tall tales about his past, Biden’s tended to be peripheral to his message. In other words, he was hurting his reputation for little possible gain.

While talking in November to technical college students standing near a truck, Biden claimed, “I used to drive a tractor-trailer,” though only for “part of a summer.” This was similar to something he had said at a Mack Trucks facility in July, when he claimed, “I used to drive an 18-wheeler, man,” adding, “I got to.” There is no evidence Biden ever drove a big truck; the White House previously noted to CNN that he once had a job driving a school bus (which is not an 18-wheeler or a tractor-trailer) and that, as a senator in 1973, he spent a night riding in a cargo truck (not driving it).

Biden repeatedly told a story about a supposed conversation during his vice presidency with an old friend, an Amtrak train conductor, that could not possibly have happened because the man was dead at the time. He repeatedly boasted that he had traveled “17,000 miles” with Chinese President Xi Jinping, though that number is not even close to correct.

Biden distracted from his voting rights message with the baseless claim last week, which he had made before, about having been arrested during a civil rights protest; in some of the previous versions of the story, he had merely claimed a police officer had taken him home from a protest. (There is evidence Biden participated in some civil rights activities in his youth but no record of any arrest.)

And Biden told two different inaccurate stories while trying to emphasize his connection to the Jewish community.

At a September event in honor of the High Holy Days, Biden told Jewish leaders that he remembered “spending time at” and “going to” Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, the site of an antisemitic massacre in 2018; he had spoken by phone to the synagogue’s rabbi in 2019 but never went. At a Hanukkah event in December, Biden claimed that late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir had invited him to meet with her during the Six-Day War of 1967 (he actually met with her weeks before the Yom Kippur War six years later) and, more significantly, that she had wanted him to be “the liaison between she and the Egyptians about the Suez, and so on and so forth.”

There is zero evidence Meir ever wanted to use a 30-year-old rookie US senator as a “liaison” with a major adversary.

False claims about Afghanistan

Biden was bedeviled over the summer by his chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. And he made a variety of false claims as he tried to defend his handling of the situation – further undermining his authority on an issue on which he was already struggling to persuade the public.

In August, the President said, “What interest do we have in Afghanistan at this point, with al Qaeda gone?” Al Qaeda had been degraded in Afghanistan, but it wasn’t “gone” – as a Pentagon spokesman acknowledged on camera that same day. In an interview that week, Biden defended the US withdrawal in part by claiming that the concept of nation-building in Afghanistan “never made any sense to me” – though, in fact, he had explicitly advocated nation-building in the early years of the war, both in Afghanistan and more broadly.

In July, when Biden was under pressure to quickly relocate Afghans who had assisted US troops, he said “the law doesn’t allow” Afghan translators to come to the US to await the processing of their visa applications. But experts in immigration law immediately said this wasn’t true, given the administration’s authority to grant “parole,” and, indeed, the Biden administration ended up using parole later in the summer to do what Biden had claimed wasn’t permitted.

In December, Biden said in another interview that “I’ve been against that war in Afghanistan from the very beginning.” While he eventually grew opposed to the war, he was not against it from the start – as fact-checkers pointed out when he had made similar remarks during his presidential campaign.

False claims about the economy

The state of the economy was a key rhetorical battleground between Biden and his critics: He argued it was thriving; they argued it was failing. And although both sides often cited valid data points, the President also made some false claims to bolster his case.

Biden occasionally overstated progress and understated problems. Asked at a CNN town hall in July about inflation in automobile prices, he claimed that the cost of a car was “kind of back to what it was before the pandemic”; the cost had actually increased substantially since late 2019 and early 2020. In an economic speech in November, he greatly exaggerated the extent of the decline in the unemployment rate during his tenure.

To try to sell his economic policies, Biden sometimes made inaccurate statements about what experts had said about them. In May alone, he falsely claimed that there was a consensus among economists about how many jobs his American Jobs Plan would create, significantly overstated how many jobs the firm Moody’s Analytics in particular predicted the plan would create and falsely claimed that the last five leaders of the Federal Reserve had said the plan would produce economic growth – wrongly describing both the contents and the authorship of an article that was actually written by five former Internal Revenue Service chiefs.

Later in the year, Biden misleadingly framed another Moody’s jobs estimate. And he repeatedly omitted the key phrase “longer-term” from an assertion by Nobel-winning economists that his $1.9 trillion Build Back Better agenda would “ease longer-term inflationary pressures” – leaving Americans to believe that these economists might have said his agenda would reduce the inflation hurting their bank accounts today.

False claims about the Covid-19 pandemic

Many of Biden’s first-year speeches were devoted to the Covid-19 pandemic. Biden was almost incomparably more accurate on this subject than Trump was, tending to factually convey the severity of the situation rather than match his predecessor’s fantastical rhetoric about how bad numbers were not actually bad numbers and how the virus would just disappear.

But Biden made a smattering of false claims on this topic, too.

At the CNN town hall in July, Biden made the inaccurate categorical promise that “you’re not going to get Covid” if you’re vaccinated. It was clear even before the emergence of the Omicron variant that vaccinated people were still getting infected with the virus, though the vaccines made them much less likely to get seriously ill; vaccinated people on the President’s own staff had been infected. Biden also went too far at the town hall when he categorically pledged that “if you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in the ICU unit and you’re not going to die”; these outcomes happen, too, though they are much less common among vaccinated people.

Biden sometimes exaggerated on the subject of his administration’s work to get Americans vaccinated – misleadingly playing down the Trump administration’s own vaccine purchases and, in May, overstating how the US vaccination rate compared with those of the rest of the world. And he made various errors in discussing pandemic-related facts and figures.

In February, Biden claimed that “suicides are up” amid the pandemic; experts said at the time that the claim was premature, and it turned out to be wrong (though suicide rates did increase for some specific demographic groups). In October, the President wrongly told Americans that there were “over 800,000” vaccination sites in the country; he had added an extra 0 to the correct figure he usually used, 80,000.

False claims in unscripted settings

When Biden stuck to prepared speeches vetted by his staff, he tended to be factual (though certainly wasn’t perfect). When he ad-libbed or participated in unscripted exchanges with journalists and citizens, he was more likely to sprinkle in inaccuracies – making false or misleading claims about everything from his handling of the situation at the southern border to Virginia political history to gun laws to the size of a tax break for people who own racehorses.

During Biden’s first 100 days in the Oval Office, he was repeatedly incorrect or misleading in describing the actions of the Trump administration.

And he made one particularly notable misleading claim during that early period. At a heated moment of the national debate over Georgia Republicans’ new elections law, Biden did a television interview in which he criticized the law in part by misstating what it says.

Bob Dole's funeral, tragedy in Mexico, Biden on late-night TV: 5 ...

Editors

USA TODAY

'Hero of democracy': Funeral for Bob Dole at National Cathedral, followed by WWII Memorial service

The funeral for Sen. Bob Dole will be held at the Washington National Cathedral on Friday, a day after President Joe Biden and congressional leaders honored the Senate’s longest-serving GOP leader as he lay in state at the U.S. Capitol. Biden hailed Dole as “a hero of democracy" during Thursday's memorial service. Dole, a Kansas lawmaker and decorated World War II veteran who left an indelible mark on the nation’s history, died on Sunday at 98. Biden, former Sens. Pat Roberts and Tom Daschle and Dole's daughter, Robin Dole, are expected to give tributes at his funeral. Following the service, Dole's motorcade and casket will head to the National World War II Memorial on the National Mall to honor his life and service.

Prefer to listen? Check out the 5 Things podcast:

Dozens dead, scores injured in truck crash in southern Mexico

A cargo truck carrying up to 200 people tipped over and crashed into the base of a steel pedestrian bridge in southern Mexico on Thursday, killing at least 53 people and injuring at least 54 others, authorities reported. Survivor Celso Pacheco of Guatemala said there were migrants mostly from Guatemala and Honduras aboard and estimated there were eight to 10 young children. He said he was trying to reach the United States, but now expected to be deported to Guatemala. Rescue workers who first arrived said that some people who had been aboard the truck when it crashed – some bloodied or bruised – had fled into surrounding neighborhoods for fear of being detained by immigration agents. The number of people aboard is not unusual for migrant smuggling operations in Mexico, and the sheer weight of the load — combined with speed and a nearby curve — may have been enough to throw the truck off balance, authorities said.

Tributes paid to former NFL wide receiver Demaryius Thomas

Tributes were being paid Friday to former NFL wide receiver Demaryius Thomas, who was found dead in his suburban Atlanta home on Thursday evening. He was 33 years old. "Preliminary information is that his death stems from a medical issue, and our investigators currently have no reason to believe otherwise," Roswell, Georgia, police spokesman Tim Lupo wrote in an email to USA TODAY Sports early Friday. Thomas earned five straight Pro Bowls and a Super Bowl ring during a prolific receiving career spent mostly with the Denver Broncos. Family members were notified by the Roswell police at about 9 p.m. EST that they had found Thomas in a shower at his home. LaTonya Bonseigneur, a first cousin who grew up with Thomas, told The Associated Press the family believes he died from a seizure.

Ghislaine Maxwell's sex-abuse trial could resume after attorney falls sick

The sex-abuse trial of Ghislaine Maxwell could resume Friday after the judge sent jurors home Thursday because an attorney on the case had gotten sick. U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan told the jury in Manhattan federal court that an attorney was "ill and has to get care." She did not identify the attorney, but said there was no reason to believe the illness was related to the coronavirus. The government had been expected to finish presenting its case by the end of the week and the judge suggested that closing arguments might occur on Dec. 20 if the defense presentation next week only lasts a day or two.

Biden to make first late-night TV appearance as president

President Joe Biden is getting ready for his first late-night TV appearance since taking office. He'll appear virtually on NBC’s "The Tonight Show" with comedian Jimmy Fallon on Friday. Biden has made two previous appearances on the show, bantering with Fallon a week before he became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president and toward the end of his eight years as vice president in 2016. The president is suffering from a steep drop in the polls and has been under pressure to engage more with the media. He has been traveling around the country to promote a $1 trillion infrastructure law and rallying public support for a separate social welfare and climate bill that has stalled in the Senate.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Biden jokes Trump was a 'horrible plague' in remarks at White ...

CNN will air special coverage of the White House Correspondents' Dinner from 7-11 p.m. ET anchored by John Berman and Brianna Keilar in Washington, DC.

(CNN) President Joe Biden took a dig at his predecessor Saturday at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, while also joking about the press, the GOP and the continued existence of the event altogether.

"I'm really excited to be here tonight with the only group of Americans with a lower approval rating than I have," Biden said during his initial comments.

"We had a horrible plague followed by two years of Covid," he said. "Just imagine if my predecessor came to this dinner this year, now that would really have been a real coup if that occurred."

The event marked Biden's first appearance at the widely attended Washington event since taking office. As the first President to address the dinner's attendees in six years, he stressed his support for democracy and the free press.

Saturday night's dinner, which took place inside the Washington Hilton and was expected to host more than 2,500 guests, returned in full force after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. The event's program was headlined by "Daily Show" host Trevor Noah and featured Biden delivering comedic remarks. The White House Correspondents' Association, which hosts the annual black tie event, honored several journalists for their contributions.

Biden also poked fun at his age, joking that he remembers when the annual dinner began, with President Calvin Coolidge speaking in 1924. "I had just been elected to the United States Senate," he said.

The President said that when he was elected, Noah on his show called Biden "America's New Dad," to which he said, "Let me tell you something pal, I'm flattered anybody would call me a 'new' anything."

Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner US President George W. Bush, left, waves with impressionist Steve Bridges at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2006. Hide Caption 1 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner The White House Correspondents' Dinner is held in 1923. It was started two years earlier by the White House Correspondents' Association, the organization of journalists who cover the president. In 1924, Calvin Coolidge became the first president to attend the dinner. Hide Caption 2 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner President Franklin D. Roosevelt, seated, shakes hands with Raymond P. Brandt, chief of the Washington bureau of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, at the 1945 dinner. Roosevelt was congratulating Brandt for winning the first Raymond Clapper Memorial Award, which was given by the White House Correspondents' Association for distinguished reporting. Hide Caption 3 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner President Harry Truman, second from left, presents a $500 check to Peter Edson, second from right, for winning the Raymond Clapper Memorial Award in 1949. Hide Caption 4 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner Legendary golfer Bobby Jones, left, presents a duplicate of his famous putter, Calamity Jane, to President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the dinner in 1959. In the center is Felix Belair Jr. of The New York Times. Hide Caption 5 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner President Richard Nixon shakes hands with US Navy Lt. Cmdr. John McCain at the dinner in 1973. Just a month earlier, McCain had been released from a Vietnamese prison after being a prisoner of war for over five years. Hide Caption 6 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner Until 1962, the correspondents' dinner was open to just men. President John F. Kennedy, center, refused to attend until it was opened to women. Hide Caption 7 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner President Gerald Ford, right, speaks with comedian Chevy Chase, left, in 1976. Chase famously portrayed Ford as clumsy on "Saturday Night Live." Between the two, from left, are "Saturday Night Live" creator Lorne Michaels and cast members Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. Hide Caption 8 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner Ford laughs with Helen Thomas, a White House correspondent with United Press International, at the 1975 dinner. Thomas was the first female president of the White House Correspondents' Association. Hide Caption 9 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalynn Carter chat with Paul Healy, right, of the New York Daily News and Lawrence O'Rourke, left, of the Philadelphia Bulletin as they arrive to the dinner in 1977. Healy was the new president of the White House Correspondents' Association, and O'Rourke was its outgoing president. Hide Caption 10 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner At the 1987 dinner, President Ronald Reagan called up his wife, Nancy, to say a few kind words to the press. After a pause she responded, "I'm thinking." Hide Caption 11 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner President George H.W. Bush laughs while watching Jim Morris do an impression of him at the 1989 dinner. Hide Caption 12 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner President Bill Clinton holds a placard proclaiming, "Don't blame me. I voted for me," at the dinner in 1996. Clinton was auditioning some potential slogans for bumper stickers. Hide Caption 13 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner Clinton high-fives a "clone" of him played by actor Darrell Hammond in 1997. Hide Caption 14 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner President George W. Bush conducts the Marine Corps Band during the dinner in 2008. Hide Caption 15 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner Comedian Keegan-Michael Key plays President Barack Obama's "anger translator" Luther in 2015. Hide Caption 16 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, attend the correspondents' dinner in 2015. They didn't attend any of the dinners while he was President. Hide Caption 17 of 18 Photos: The history of the White House Correspondents' Dinner Obama drops the mic after speaking at his last correspondents' dinner in 2016. "Obama out," he said. Hide Caption 18 of 18

Covid anxieties

Inside the gala, negative Covid-19 tests were required for entry and masks were voluntary -- just as they are throughout most of Washington.

But there had been growing concerns that Saturday night's event could lead to Covid cases among partygoers, after dozens of attendees -- including some of Biden's Cabinet officials -- who attended a different Washington party, the Gridiron Dinner, tested positive weeks ago.

Cases of Covid in Washington are now steady after rising following the decline of the Omicron variant's wave, but Dr. Anthony Fauci, the President's chief medical adviser, decided to bow out of Saturday's dinner after a personal risk assessment.

"In general, the risk is low, but I made a personal assessment. I'm 81 years old, and if I get infected, I have a much higher risk," Fauci said earlier this week.

Saturday's event also came after two top Biden officials recently tested positive for Covid-19.

Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive on Tuesday and remains asymptomatic. And the White House's top communications official, Kate Bedingfield, tested positive on Friday and is experiencing mild symptoms. The President was not considered a close contact in either case.

But Biden's decision to still attend the dinner, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said earlier this week, was "a risk assessment and a decision he made on a personal basis." And Biden was intent on going, she said, to express his support for a free press. First lady Jill Biden also attended.

The White House said before the event that the President would be taking extra precautions to prevent catching Covid-19, including skipping the meal portion of the program. Biden sat on the dais, away from the crowded dining room, and wasn't expected to attend receptions before or afterward.

During his speech, Biden also poked fun at Fox News and made note of the Covid-related requirements to attend the event.

"If you're at home watching this and you're wondering how to do that, just contact your favorite Fox News reporter. They're all here. Vaccinated and boosted. All of them," he said to resounding applause.

Adjusting the tone for Biden's comedic set

The President had a rare chance for his comedic chops to shine Saturday night during remarks at the dinner, but the opportunity arguably came at a tough moment for the country to have a laugh.

The economic recovery from Covid-19 has stumbled in the first quarter of 2022 , with numbers revealing this week that gross domestic product declined at an annual rate of 1.4% during the first three months of the year -- marking the worst quarter for the American economy since the spring of 2020. Russia is continuing to wage war with Ukraine. And as his party heads into a highly consequential midterms season, Biden's approval rating has stagnated -- with a recent CNN Poll of Polls average on Biden's handling of the presidency finding that 41% of Americans approve of the job he's doing, with 54% disapproving.

Biden on Saturday acknowledged the difficulty he's had in getting his agenda across, while also touching on his grand promises of being able to reach across the aisle, saying, "I came to office with an ambitious agenda, and I expected it to face stiff opposition in the Senate. I just hoped it would be from Republicans."

The speech also took place at a time when the American political environment remains extremely polarized, arguably more divided than in 2016 -- the last time a president delivered a speech at the dinner.

While more partisan gridlock is possible, Biden said he was confident he could sort it out in a second term.

"We may end up with more partisan gridlock," he said. "But I'm confident we can work it out during my remaining six years in the presidency."

On Republicans' use of the phrase "Let's go Brandon" against Biden, he said, "Republicans seem to support one fella. Some guy named Brandon. He's having a really good year, and I'm kind of happy for him."

Biden's speech had been in the works for a few weeks, officials said, and wasn't finished as of Friday. But at the outset of the writing process , the President told his team he envisioned an address that went beyond just an amalgamation of one-liners, wisecracks and gags.

The White House sourced a long list jokes from across his staff to craft Saturday night's set. Officials said the chief of staff Ron Klain, members of the communications team and others inside the White House sent jokes to Biden's speechwriters for consideration. Rob Flaherty, the director of digital strategy, and Dan Cluchey, a senior speechwriter -- both said to be among Biden's funniest staffers -- sent material.

Biden was expected to do a few practice runs to get a feel for the delivery and timing, a person familiar with the matter said.

Biden used the appearance to loudly affirm his belief in a free press after his predecessor -- who skipped the yearly dinner throughout his time in office -- labeled reporters the "enemy of the people."

"At home, poison is running through our democracy," he said, but "What's clear ... You, the free press, matter more than you ever did in the last century."

As he yielded the mic to Noah, Biden said to him, "Now you get to roast the President of the United States. And unlike in Moscow, you won't go to jail."

This story has been updated with additional information Saturday.

Kim Reynolds to deliver State of the Union Republican rebuttal

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds will deliver the Republican Party's rebuttal to President Joe Biden's State of the Union address next week.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy made the announcement in a release Tuesday morning.

“While Washington Democrats fail working Americans, Republican governors are fighting and winning for families," McConnell said in a statement. "Gov. Kim Reynolds’ brave, bold, and successful leadership for Iowans has put her right at the front of that pack."

Reynolds has been on the front lines of Republican governors pushing back against what they call government overreach throughout the pandemic, and it's garnered her national attention.

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In the early days of the pandemic, Reynolds was one of only a few governors who did not order a statewide "stay at home" order, and she refused calls for a statewide mask mandate until hospital admissions reached their height. Unlike in other states, bars and restaurants remained mostly open. She has said moving K-12 classes online for several months was her biggest regret of the pandemic, and she has signed legislation requiring schools to offer a 100% in-person learning option.

Biden, a Democrat, has faced plummeting approval ratings in Iowa. According to a November Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll, 62% of Iowans disapproved of the job Biden was doing as president. Another third, 33%, approved, and 6% were not sure.

"Republican governors across America are leading the charge in defending liberty and securing unmatched economic prosperity in our states," Reynolds said in a statement. "The Biden administration is governing from the far-left, ignoring the problems of working-class Americans while pushing an agenda that stifles free speech, free thought, and economic freedom. The American people have had enough, but there is an alternative and that's what I look forward to sharing on Tuesday evening."

Reynolds is widely expected to seek reelection in 2022, though she has not formally announced a campaign.

More:Can Deidre DeJear mount a credible campaign for governor? Iowa Democrats are panicking

Reynolds is not the first Iowan to enjoy the national honor. Republican U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst delivered the rebuttal to President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech in 2015. She called for changing the direction of the country, but the Internet remembered her for her viral reference to the folksy tradition of wearing bread bags over shoes in the winter.

Biden's State of the Union Speech will be at 8 p.m., March 1.

Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Register. Reach her at bpfann@dmreg.com. Follow her on Twitter at @brianneDMR.