When members of the media gather in a Washington ballroom on April 28, President Donald Trump won’t be joining them.
Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images
When members of the media gather in a Washington ballroom on April 28, President Donald Trump won’t be joining them.
For the second consecutive year, Trump has decided to forego the traditional lighthearted dinner that brings together members of the presidential administration and the reporters who cover them. The White House Correspondents’ Association announced the president’s decision in a statement from Bloomberg White House correspondent and WHCA president Margaret Talev.
“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,” Talev wrote.
Statement on President and WHCA Dinner pic.twitter.com/WiemgnIvcq
— WHCA (@whca) April 6,2018
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will represent the administration in Trump’s place.
Once the subject of his own Comedy Central roast, Trump has a reputation for being a bit thin-skinned when it comes to one topic that could have been brought up at the dinner — his money.
After taking part in Trump’s roast in 2011, comedian Anthony Jeselnik dished on the one topic Trump told him was off-limits. “Trump’s one rule was ‘don’t say I have less money then I say I do,’” Jeselnik told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016.
“His kids were fair game. His wife was fair game. And I remember one of my jokes was about his casino business failing, and I could feel that hurt coming off of him,” he added.
“He didn’t like that joke,” Jeselnik explained, noting that Trump seemed more distraught by that remark than one where the comedian suggested people would be happy if Trump had cancer.
This will be the second time Trump skips the famous dinner. Before Trump’s decision to skip the event in 2017, the last president to miss it had been Ronald Reagan in 1981 — instead, he was recuperating at Camp David after a would-be assassin’s bullet nearly killed him days earlier. Still, Reagan phoned into the event to offer his brief remarks, as well as some particularly dark humor given the circumstances of his absence.
“If I could give you just one little bit of advice,” Reagan said, “when somebody tells you to get in a car quick, do it.”
Before Reagan’s absence in 1981, both Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon skipped the dinner twice.
