Donald Trump attending the White House correspondents’ dinner could be awkward – and lead to blowback
Last year, after the Trump White House cut off access for the Associated Press because the news organization refused to use the name Gulf of America instead of Gulf of Mexico, debate raged about whether his staffers should be welcomed at the annual White House correspondents’ dinner, the US media’s starry annual celebration of press freedom.
This year, Donald Trump will attend the dinner for the first time as president. Matters have only gotten worse. Over the last 12 months, Trump has referred to a female Bloomberg News reporter as “piggy” and to news coverage of the war in Iran as “almost treasonous”. He has pressed Congress to rescind previously approved funding for public broadcasters NPR and PBS; called for television networks he dislikes to lose their license to broadcast; threatened to jail a reporter (or reporters) if they don’t reveal confidential sources for reporting on the war in Iran; had his lawyer send letters to CNN and the New York Times threatening to sue over their reporting on the US’s June 2025 bombing campaign in Iran; and filed lawsuits against the Wall Street Journal, the Times and the BBC.