The Daily Beast’s unmissable newsletter The Swamp has all the real news from the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner’s weekend of parties. In this exclusive extract learn about the biggest star of the weekend on the biggest absentee. And sign up here to learn about a jaw-dropping racial blunder, which Cabinet secretary went to a $500,000 members’ club’s sales pitch and much much more.
Donald Trump may have snubbed the White House Correspondents’ Dinner for Pope Francis’ funeral but the second biggest newsmaker of the past few months was full frontal across the party weekend.
Jason Isaacs exposed all in a scene for the third season of The White Lotus and he was on view all weekend in Washington.
The ubiquitous 61-year-old British actor was the only real movie star at the usually star-studded UTA pre-party at Osteria Mozza in Georgetown on Friday night. Earlier, he was at The Creative Coalition Right To Bear Arts Gala dinner at The Madison Hotel and at the White House Correspondents Weekend Garden Brunch on Saturday morning before the main event.
The packed brunch, masterminded by Tammy Haddad, CEO of Haddad Media, and hosts Kevin Sheekey, David Urban, Teresa Carlson and Franco Nuschese was held at the late, legendary Washington Post owner Katherine Graham’s former mansion in Georgetown. It was once owned by George Washington’s great-grandnephew, and by William “Wild Bill” Donovan, who founded the Office of Strategic Services, the agency that preceded the CIA.
The gorgeous home that once hosted the likes of JFK, Princess Diana and Ronald Reagan is now owned by venture capitalist and Washington Commanders part-owner Mark Ein and his wife Sally, who also co-hosted.
Throughout the weekend, there was a president’s name that was never mentioned, despite being on everyone’s thoughts, not least because of his absence and that of his acolytes. It’s the kind of taboo that Isaacs knows too well. As Lucius Malfoy, Draco Malfoy’s Death Eater father in the Harry Potter movies, Isaacs would have been aware of, “He who must not be named.”
According to author J.K. Rowling’s novels, Voldemort’s name represented his terror and his power, so people were afraid to say it out loud.
Isaacs maintained the tradition in not naming Trump in a speech paying tribute to the firefighters and emergency responders called to the deadly Jan. 29 plane crash in D.C.
Isaacs has been twice before to the correspondents’ dinner, and said he heard moving speeches by Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
But he made no secret of his feelings towards the current U.S. president, referencing “someone who will not be here tonight” as a “scumbag.”
Isaacs’ antipathy towards the president is not entirely new. Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe to promote the latest season of The White Lotus, in which he plays troubled businessman Timothy Ratliff, the actor remarked: “Sorry, we’re talking about a television show, but there is a tie-in. I am playing an enormously wealthy and self-centered person who has really only thought about himself for most of his life.”
Er yes. But then again everything is not always what it seems. He apparently told a friend the penis on the TV show was not his. It was a prosthetic.
The Swamp was written by David Gardner, Alyson Kreuger and Sara Ewell-Wice.
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The post White Lotus Star’s Full Frontal Attack on Trump Exposed appeared first on The Daily Beast.
