President Donald Trump will attend the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner for his first time in office, ending a boycott over the gathering of journalists he has repeatedly derided as unfair and biased against him.
In a Monday post on Truth Social, Trump said the WHCA asked him “very nicely” to be the honored guest at the dinner and he accepted. While he attended these dinners in the past before first taking office in 2017, he has declined to do so as president, casting the press as adversarial and saying he would not attend while coverage remained hostile.
The WHCA has hosted the dinner — an event celebrating journalism that draws high-profile guests — since 1921.
“In honor of our Nation’s 250th Birthday, and the fact that these ‘Correspondents’ now admit that I am truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of our Country, the G.O.A.T., according to many, it will be my Honor to accept their invitation, and work to make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER!” Trump wrote.
Trump has long accused the news media of treating him unfairly and often portrayed journalists as political adversaries. “Because the Press was extraordinarily bad to me, FAKE NEWS ALL, right from the beginning of my First Term, I boycotted the event, and never went as Honoree,” he wrote.
In a statement, WHCA president Weijia Jiang wrote that she is glad that the president accepted the invitation.
“For more than 100 years, the journalists of the White House Correspondents’ Association have enjoyed an evening with the president, a dinner that celebrates the First Amendment while supporting the work we do including awards honoring excellent journalism and scholarships to help the next generation of reporters who someday will be the ones asking the questions at the White House,” she wrote. “We’re happy the president has accepted our invitation and look forward to hosting him.”
This year’s event will take place at its usual venue, the Washington Hilton, on April 25. While a comedian has traditionally emceed the gathering, the WHCA disinvited comic Amber Ruffin last year after a Trump administration official publicly criticized her and called her “hate-filled.”
“At this consequential moment for journalism, I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work and providing scholarship and mentorship to the next generation of journalists,” then-WHCA president Eugene Daniels wrote to members at the time.
This year, instead of a comedian, the WHCA invited mentalist Oz Pearlman to perform.
Trump has continuously warred with the press since beginning his political career, often calling journalists the “enemy of the American people” and suing news organizations for disfavored or damaging coverage.
He’s also taken aim at specific White House reporters, such as former CNN correspondent Jim Acosta, who successfully sued the government after his White House credential was revoked during Trump’s first term. And at the start of his second term, Trump booted the Associated Press from the White House for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”; however, the news organization sued and regained some access.
The administration has also worked to elevate “new media” outlets more aligned with Trump, announcing the creation of a dedicated seating section for nontraditional outlets and restoring credentials to 440 individuals it said were “wrongly revoked by the previous administration.” Taken together, the moves reflect a broader effort not just to spar with individual journalists but to reshape the composition and culture of the White House press corps.
In 2011, dinner host and comedian Seth Meyers homed in on the future president, who was in attendance. “Donald Trump has been saying he will run for President as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke,” Meyers said. He later claimed that his roast that night was the reason Trump ran for president.
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