{"id":72624,"date":"2026-04-25T10:56:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T15:56:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/25\/trump-to-headline-2026-white-house-correspondents-dinner-for-the-first-time-as-president\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T10:56:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T15:56:36","slug":"trump-to-headline-2026-white-house-correspondents-dinner-for-the-first-time-as-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/25\/trump-to-headline-2026-white-house-correspondents-dinner-for-the-first-time-as-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump to headline 2026 White House Correspondents’ Dinner for the first time as president"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Trump is attending the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner Saturday for the first time <\/a>as commander-in-chief \u2014 after boycotting the annual event last year and each year during his first term.<\/p>\n

The dinner<\/a> will take place on Saturday, April 25, at the Washington Hilton.<\/p>\n

“The 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,” Trump posted<\/a> on his Truth Social last month, adding that it would be his “Honor to accept their invitation.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

TRUMP’S RETURN TO THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER MARKS A POLITICAL JOURNEY COMING FULL CIRCLE\u00a0<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The White House Correspondents\u2019 Association\u2019s president, Weijia Jiang said that they were “happy” with the president\u2019s decision to attend.<\/p>\n

“For more than 100 years, the journalists of the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association have enjoyed an evening with the president,” Jiang said in a statement last month. “We\u2019re happy the president has accepted our invitation and look forward to hosting him.”<\/p>\n

DAN RATHER AMONG 200 JOURNALISTS DEMANDING TRUMP BE CALLED OUT AT WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The president had skipped the event in years past, saying that decision was due to the press being “extraordinarily bad” to him.<\/p>\n

Despite the annual invitation and Trump\u2019s acceptance, hundreds of journalists are going after the president, having signed an open letter urging the White House Correspondents\u2019 Association to call out the president and “forcefully demonstrate opposition” to his “efforts to trample freedom of the press.”<\/p>\n

“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 reads.<\/p>\n

“The collective weight of the administration\u2019s actions \u2014 retaliatory access bans, coercive regulatory investigations, frivolous lawsuits against the press, defunding of public broadcasting, dismantling of international broadcasting, physical restrictions on journalists, personal verbal attacks on reporters, assaults on the media in official White House press releases and social media posts, the arrest of journalists, and the pardoning of those who committed violence against the press \u2014 represent the most systematic and comprehensive assault on freedom of the press by a sitting American president.”<\/p>\n

TRUMP ACCEPTS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ ASSOCIATION DINNER INVITATION FOR THE FIRST TIME AS PRESIDENT<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Notable signatories on the letter are former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, former ABC News White House correspondent\u00a0Sam Donaldson<\/a>, former NBC News anchor Ann Curry and PBS NewsHour correspondent Stephanie Sy.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the White House simply pointed to Trump’s Truth Social\u00a0post<\/a>\u00a0announcing he was attending the dinner when previously asked about the open letter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST MEDIA AND CULTURE NEWS<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Trump did attend the event as a private citizen in 2011 during the Obama administration. Then-President Barack Obama made a joke about Trump during that event saying: “Say what you will about Mr. Trump, he certainly would bring some change to the White House. Let\u2019s see what we\u2019ve got up there.”<\/p>\n

Obama then featured an image of the White House with a neon sign that said “Trump White House Hotel Casino Golf Course” with gold columns and a chandelier.<\/p>\n

But during his second term, Trump has actually taken to remodeling the White House\u2014 with a new ballroom under construction and his addition of gold molding to the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

Fox News’ Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump is attending the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner Saturday for the first time as commander-in-chief \u2014 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 … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}