Trump Won’t Attend White House Correspondent’s Dinner

In recent years, the dinner traditionally involves presidents trying to rib the press after an A-list comedian – like Larry Wilmore, Seth Meyers, Wanda Sykes, or Stephen Colbert – takes his or her own shots at bigwigs in the room. “Please wish everyone well and have a great evening”, Trump tweeted. He skipped the dinner in April 2016, which came amid the presidential campaign and was the last of the dinners in which President Barack Obama was the honored guest. Reagan however phoned in with friendly remarks.

Refusing to call his Twitter attacks “venting”, Trump repeated his claim that his tweeting helps him to go around the “dishonest media”. “Now with all of that being said, I just thought it would be better if I didn’t do the dinner”, Trump told Ainsley Earhardt, Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade.

“We’re getting the bad ones out. Try reporting accurately & fairly!”

While the rest of us were watching the Oscars, Melania Trump was hosting the black-tie Governors Ball, the White House’s first social event of the year.

This year’s dinner was already shaping up as an outlier. Further, the casts of “Veep”, “House of Cards” and “Scandal” also said they would not even be attending the White House Correspondents Dinner this year. While foreign aid has always been a target for conservatives, cuts to these programs are unlikely to get the Trump administration close to the $54 billion in proposed overall cuts.

In the interview with Fox, Trump accused Obama and his allies of possible involvement in the leaks of information from the White House. They are part of the “pool”, a small group of reporters who have access to certain events and share the contents with other media.

Outlets who were involved in the meeting included Fox News, Breitbart and the Washington Times, as well as CBS, NBC, ABC, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Time and the Associated Press. Its journalist protested, and attended the briefing uninvited.

Smaller outlets that have provided favorable coverage of the Trump administration, such as Breitbart and the One America News Network, received a green light to attend the so-called “gaggle” in White House spokesman Sean Spicer’s office.

“We haven’t made a decision on it yet”, a CNN spokesperson said.

The White House is sending Mr Trump’s proposal to federal departments this week as he gears up for budget negotiations with Congress that often take months to play out. Stephen Colbert, then the host of Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report”, brought his faux conservative persona to the dais to the befuddlement of the president.