Jeff Bezos, the Clintons and Robert De Niro join Biden for star-studded state dinner with Japan

It was a star-studded affair on Wednesday night time as President Joe Biden welcomed A-listers together with Robert De Niro, Tiffany Chen and Jeff Bezos to the White House for a state dinner with Fumio Kishida, the Japanese prime minister.

The president and first woman Jill Biden hosted greater than 200 company at the glitzy occasion in the White House East Room, the place they dined on a specifically curated menu of house-cured salmon, dry-aged rib-eye steak and matcha ganache.

The visitor listing learn like a who’s who of distinguished Democratic figures, tech moguls and Biden relations.

The Hollywood actor and outspoken Mr Trump critic De Niro arrived hand in hand with his girlfriend, Tiffany Chen.

The former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton made it to the prime desk.

Big Tech moguls Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos, who was joined by Lauren Sanchez, had been additionally in attendance, as was JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

On the political and administrative aisle of the guestlist was the US vice-president Kamala Harris, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, secretary of state Antony Blinken and Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary.

Several Biden relations, together with granddaughter Naomi and her husband Peter Neal, had been additionally there as had been labour luminaries Shawn Fain, the president of United Auto Workers, and the United Steelworkers president David McCall – whose unions have endorsed Mr Biden for re-election.

Both Mr Biden and Mr Kishida took to the stage for a lighthearted, heat deal with to the crowd, the place the former spoke of the two nations’ “friendship” and the latter invoked an iconic phrase from Star Trek.

Speaking in English, Mr Kishida informed company at the White House that he hoped the “unshakable relationship” between his nation and the US would “boldly go where no one had gone before”.

“I would like to propose a toast to our voyage to the frontier of the Japan-US relationship with this word: boldly go,” he stated, quoting the iconic opening monologue of the unique Star Trek sequence.

The two leaders, who expressed a real friendship, pledged to proceed to knit collectively their nations’ pursuits in the face of worldwide challenges.

Mr Biden, 81, stated he and Kishida, 66, got here of age as their nations cast a robust bond in the many years after they had been pitted towards one another in the Second World War.

“We both remember the choices that were made to forge a friendship,” he stated. “We both remember the hard work, what it has done to find healing.”

“Tonight,” Biden continued, “We pledge to keep going.”

Dr Biden had remodeled the state ground of the White House into what she known as a “vibrant spring garden” for the night’s occasion.

The ground of the well-known Cross Hall was embellished with pictures giving the really feel of strolling over a koi pond, a nod to fish that symbolise “friendship, peace, luck and perseverance”, the first woman stated at a media preview on Tuesday.

Guests had been entertained by musical visitor Paul Simon who sang two of his main hits, “Graceland” and “Slip Slidin’ Away”.

A state dinner is a software of US diplomacy, an honour doled out sparingly and solely to America’s closest allies. In the case of Japan, the president has granted that honour for simply the fifth time to an ally that he sees as a cornerstone of his coverage towards the Indo-Pacific area.

Mr Kishida is on an official go to to the US this week, with the state dinner Mr Biden’s first this yr.

The Associated Press contributed to this report