Trump to headline 2026 White House Correspondents' Dinner for the first time as president
President Trump is attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday for the first time as commander-in-chief — after boycotting the annual event last year and each year during his first...
By Fox News · Fox News
President Trump is attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday for the first time as commander-in-chief — after boycotting the annual event last year and each year during his first term. The dinner will take place on Saturday, April 25, at the Washington Hilton. "The White House Correspondents Association has asked me, very nicely, to be the Honoree at this year’s Dinner, a long and storied tradition since it began in 1924, under then President Calvin Coolidge," Trump posted on his Truth Social last month, adding that it would be his "Honor to accept their invitation." TRUMP'S RETURN TO THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS' DINNER MARKS A POLITICAL JOURNEY COMING FULL CIRCLE The White House Correspondents’ Association’s president, Weijia Jiang said that they were "happy" with the president’s decision to attend. "For more than 100 years, the journalists of the White House Correspondents’ Association have enjoyed an evening with the president," Jiang said in a statement last month. "We’re happy the president has accepted our invitation and look forward to hosting him." DAN RATHER AMONG 200 JOURNALISTS DEMANDING TRUMP BE CALLED OUT AT WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS' DINNER The president had skipped the event in years past, saying that decision was due to the press being "extraordinarily bad" to him. Despite the annual invitation and Trump’s acceptance, hundreds of journalists are going after the president, having signed an open letter urging the White House Correspondents’ Association to call out the president and "forcefully demonstrate opposition" to his "efforts to trample freedom of the press." "The dinner has long served as a symbol of the vital and irreplaceable role of a free press in American democracy and a celebration of the First Amendment and the journalists who uphold it. President Trump's systematic, sustained, and unprecedented attacks on the free press... render his presence at such an event a profound contradiction of its purpose," the open letter…