(Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden joked with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola about the looming end of his presidential term as he hosted this year’s Kennedy Center honorees at the White House, saying he’ll soon be looking for a job.
Coppola, 85, was among the award recipients being feted Sunday in Washington, along with the Grateful Dead, singer-songwriter and guitarist Bonnie Raitt and jazz trumpeter and composer Arturo Sandoval. Biden also name-checked actor Robert De Niro, whom Coppola famously directed in The Godfather Part II.
“Francis, I’m looking for work in February,” Biden said at a White House reception for the honorees. “So maybe you got something for me on a Biden-De Niro combination here.”
Biden leaves office on Jan. 20 after he withdrew from the presidential race and Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election to Donald Trump.
Biden said Sandoval, 75, fled his native Cuba for the US to escape communist repression and “share his own jazz sound with the entire world,” winning multiple awards along the way.
“Arturo’s story is the American story — the nation of immigrants, the nation of dreamers, the nation of freedom,” Biden said.
New York City’s historic Apollo Theater, which has launched the careers of many famed Black artists, was singled out for special Kennedy Center honors this year.
Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff also attended the White House event. They and Biden are scheduled to attend the ceremony at the Kennedy Center later Sunday.
Rapper and actress Queen Latifah, an honoree at last year’s awards, is the host for the 2024 award show.
Attending the annual gala honoring artists with lifetime achievement awards is a tradition that Trump skipped during his first term in office, after he was criticized by some of the nominees.
Biden and Harris both embraced Hollywood celebrities during this year’s election campaign, attending political fundraisers hosted by donors such as George Clooney and Steven Spielberg. Harris’ campaign rallies often featured celebrities, such as Pink, Katy Perry and Beyoncé.
Trump has had a tenuous relationship with the arts, including a proposal to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts. His entire President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, resigned in 2017 in the wake of his response to a white supremacist rally and attack in Charlottesville, Virginia where Trump said there was blame on “both sides.”
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