{"id":511703,"date":"2026-03-03T13:52:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T13:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/511703\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T13:52:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T13:52:44","slug":"trump-says-he-will-attend-white-house-correspondents-dinner-for-the-first-time-as-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/511703\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump says he will attend White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner for the first time as president"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n President Donald Trump said Monday he will attend this year\u2019s White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner<\/a>, a notable reversal after boycotting the annual event traditionally attended by presidents.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe White House Correspondents Association has asked me, very nicely, to be the Honoree at this year\u2019s Dinner, a long and storied tradition since it began in 1924, under then President Calvin Coolidge,\u201d the president said in a Truth Social post<\/a>, adding that in honor of the nation\u2019s 250th birthday, he will attend and \u201cwork to make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER!\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump was the first president to not attend the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner while in office, boycotting the annual Washington gathering during his first term and the first year of his second. He has frequently criticized the event<\/a> and the news media more broadly<\/a>, at times labeling journalists \u201cthe enemy of the American people,\u201d a sentiment he referenced in his Monday post.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBecause 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,\u201d he said, before signaling a change in tone: \u201cI look forward to being with everyone this year.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cFor more than 100 years, the journalists of the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association have enjoyed an evening with the president,\u201d said Weijia Jiang, president of the association, going on to highlight the dinner\u2019s tradition of celebrating the First Amendment and awarding scholarships.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019re happy the president has accepted our invitation and look forward to hosting him,\u201d said Jiang, CBS News\u2019 senior White House correspondent.\n <\/p>\n

\n Although Trump has never attended as president, he did attend the dinner before taking office, most famously in 2011<\/a>, when then-President Barack Obama roasted him during his remarks.\n <\/p>\n

\n Relations between the White House and the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association have remained strained<\/a> since the start of Trump\u2019s second term. The administration has altered long-standing press access arrangements, including changing the management<\/a> of the White House press pool and restricting access<\/a> to the press secretary\u2019s office.\n <\/p>\n

\n The dinner, set for April 25 at the Washington Hilton, is known for its laughs and lighthearted moments. In more recent years, they have featured a speaker \u2014 usually a comedian \u2014 roasting the commander in chief.\n <\/p>\n

\n Last year, the association scrapped plans<\/a> to feature comedian Amber Ruffin as the dinner\u2019s headliner and instead said it would focus the event on celebrating the First Amendment and the role of a free press, a move widely viewed as reflective of tensions with the Trump administration.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump said Monday he will attend this year\u2019s White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner, a notable reversal after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-511703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}