WASHINGTON (AP) The war in Gaza spurred large protests outside a glitzy roast with President Joe Biden , journalists, politicians and celebrities Saturday but went all but unmentioned by participants inside, with Biden instead using the annual White House correspondents dinner to make both jokes and grim warnings about Republican rival Donald Trump s fight to reclaim the U.S. presidency.

An evening normally devoted to presidents, journalists and comedians taking outrageous pokes at political scandals and each other often seemed this year to illustrate the difficulty of putting aside the coming presidential election and the troubles in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Biden opened his roast with a direct but joking focus on Trump, calling him sleepy Don, in reference to a nickname Trump had given the president previously.

Despite being similar in age, Biden said, the two presidential hopefuls have little else in common. My vice president actually endorses me, Biden said. Former Trump Vice President Mike Pence has refused to endorse Trumps reelection bid.

But the president quickly segued to a grim speech about what he believes is at stake this election, saying that another Trump administration would be even more harmful to America than his first term.

We have to take this serious eight years ago we could have written it off as Trump talk but not after January 6, Biden told the audience, referring to the supporters of Trump who stormed the Capitol after Biden defeated Trump in the 2020 election.

Trump did not attend Saturdays dinner and never attended the annual banquet as president. In 2011, he sat in the audience, and glowered through a roasting by then-President Barack Obama of Trumps reality-television celebrity status. Obamas sarcasm then was so scalding that many political watchers linked it to Trumps subsequent decision to run for president in 2016.

Bidens speech, which lasted around 10 minutes, made no mention of the ongoing war or the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

One of the few mentions came from Kelly ODonnell, president of the correspondents association, who briefly noted some 100 journalists killed in Israels 6-month-old war against Hamas in Gaza. In an evening dedicated in large part to journalism, ODonnell cited journalists who have been detained across the world, including Americans Evan Gershkovich in Russia and Austin Tice, who is believed to be held in Syria. Families of both men were in attendance as they have been at previous dinners.

To get inside Saturdays dinner, some guests had to hurry through hundreds of protesters outraged over the mounting humanitarian disaster for Palestinian civilians in Gaza. They condemned Biden for his support of Israels military campaign and Western news outlets for what they said was undercoverage and misrepresentation of the conflict.