President Trump has again decided to pass on the White House Correspondent’s Association dinner, after skipping it last year.
“The White House has informed us that the president does not plan to participate in this year’s dinner but that he will actively encourage members of the executive branch to attend and join us as we celebrate the First Amendment,” WHCA president Margaret Talev said in a statement.
“The April 28 dinner celebrates award-winning reporting, scholarship winners and the vital role of the First Amendment and the free press in American democracy.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will fill in for the president at the head table.
Trump has been popular joke material for speakers at the dinner over the years. Late-night comedian Seth Meyers made fun of the New York billionaire at the dinner in 2011, when Trump was toying with a 2012 presidential run.
“Donald Trump has been saying that he’ll run for president as a Republican, which is surprising, since I just assumed he was running as a joke,” Meyers cracked.
President Obama ribbed Trump at the same dinner for being a conspiracy theorist, referring to the “birther” movement, which Trump gave momentum.
Perhaps cementing the president’s decision not to attend, some of Trump’s favorite “fake news” media targets will receive awards, including CNN and The New York Times.
The Fake News Networks, those that knowingly have a sick and biased AGENDA, are worried about the competition and quality of Sinclair Broadcast. The “Fakers” at CNN, NBC, ABC & CBS have done so much dishonest reporting that they should only be allowed to get awards for fiction!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2018
Maggie Haberman of the Times will receive an award for her “nuanced, contextual and multi-dimensional” reporting and “deep understanding of what makes President Trump tick.”
Haberman has covered Trump for decades while he was a New York businessman, but the president called her a “Hillary flunky, (who) knows nothing about me and is not given access” after one of her stories on the Russia investigation.
As recently as this week, the president continued to rip the press, most of whom he says cover him unfairly. He has criticized CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Buzzfeed, to name a few.