President Donald Trump has apparently accepted an invitation to attend the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner for the first time as president. The last time he attended the event was in 2015, while Obama was still president.
What could possibly go wrong?
FOX News reports:
Trump accepts White House Correspondents’ Association dinner invitation for the first time as presidentPresident Donald Trump announced on Monday that he will attend the White House Correspondents’ Association’s (WHCA) annual dinner for the first time as president this April.”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 wrote on Truth Social Monday. “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!”He added, “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. However, I look forward to being with everyone this year. Hopefully, it will be something very Special. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP.”Shortly after the post, WHCA President Weijia Jiang released a statement celebrating Trump’s decision.”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. We’re happy the president has accepted our invitation and look forward to hosting him,” the statement read.
Media critic Stephen L. Miller is having fun with this. He suggests that some journalists will now be pressured to skip the event in protest.
More from The Hill:
Trump’s appearance at the dinner, which is slated for April 25, will mark the first time Trump has attended the event as president. The last time Trump attended the event was in 2015 before he was elected. The president’s decision to boycott the dinner broke with years of precedent by sitting presidents.Trump has been heavily critical of the dinner during his time in office. He was famously roasted by former President Obama in 2011 over incessant birther conspiracies about Obama not being born in the U.S. Obama shot back heavily that year, and that dinner is known conventionally by Trump allies as a moment in which he opted to run for president in 2016.The WHCA clashed with the Trump administration once he took office for a second time, opting to take over the press pool and expand it with several conservative-leaning independent outlets. Trump still frequently engages with traditional media, having answered the calls of half a dozen journalists just over the weekend to talk about Iran.
Well, it’ll certainly get the highest ratings that the event has seen in a long time.
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