- Donald Trump will not participate in the 2025 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, continuing his streak as the only modern president to never attend the event while in office.
- Trump planned to skip the event, hosted by the journalist-run White House Correspondents’ Association, even before Pope Francis’ funeral was scheduled for the same day.
- Trump did attend the event as a celebrity guest before running for office, and was mocked by then-President Barack Obama and host Seth Meyers.
- Press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who frequently interacts with White House correspondents, has also announced that she is skipping the WHCD.
Donald Trump’s history of boycotting the White House Correspondents’ Dinner continues this year as political journalists rally in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, April 26, in his absence.
The president and first lady Melania Trump traveled to Rome to attend the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday, but even before those plans were announced, the first couple had plans to skip the annual event once again.
So far, Trump is the only president to never attend a Correspondents’ Dinner while in office, since its inception in 1921.
The event was created as a forum to celebrate the First Amendment, bringing political reporters and White House officials together to put hostilities aside for one night and acknowledge the importance of a free press.
The dinner also traditionally includes a roast of the president by a professional comedian, and in fairness, the president is afforded a chance to sling some jokes back at the guests in the room — all in good fun.
Though Trump has not attended the event as president, he did attend as a celebrity guest before he was elected. Some think that his negative experience at the time made the TV personality-turned-politician sour about the event.
In 2011, Trump was roasted at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner by then-President Barack Obama, as well as that year’s host, Saturday Night Live star Seth Meyers.
At the time, the Apprentice host was one of the biggest proponents of the “birther” conspiracy that Obama was not a U.S. citizen and was therefore not eligible for the presidency, which the Obama family didn’t take lightly.
“Now I know that he’s taken some flak lately. But no one is happier — no one is prouder — to put this birth certificate matter to rest than The Donald,” Obama said to the room at the 2011 dinner. “And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter: Like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”
“All kidding aside,” he continued, “obviously we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. For example, just recently, in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice, at the steakhouse, the men’s cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around, but you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership, and so ultimately you didn’t blame Lil Jon or Meat Loaf, you fired Gary Busey.”
“These are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night,” Obama quipped. “Well handled, sir. Well handled.”
At the same dinner, Meyers mocked Trump’s newly stated interest in running for office at the time.
“Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican — which is surprising, since I just assumed that he was running as a joke,” the Weekend Update anchor teased.
Though Trump appeared visibly unhappy by the jokes, Obama continued to take shots at him in 2015 and 2016 as his bid for the presidency became a reality.
“I hope you all are proud of yourselves,” Obama said to the room of journalists at his final event as president. “The guy wanted to give his hotel business a boost, and now we’re praying that Cleveland makes it through July.”
Since Trump became president shortly after, he has snubbed the Correspondents’ Dinner every year, though he denied that Obama’s ribbing motivated his desire to win the White House.
“There are many reasons I’m running. But that’s not one of them,” he told The Washington Post during his 2016 campaign.
In 2017, he skipped the event, but shared a good-natured post on Twitter, writing, “Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!”
In 2018, he skipped again but sent White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders in his place. At the time, Sanders offered a glimpse into why the president and his team were making themselves scarce.
“I think it’s kind of naive of us to think that we can all walk into a room for a couple of hours and pretend that some of that tension isn’t there,” she told ABC News. “You know, one of the things we say in the South, if a Girl Scout egged your house, would you buy cookies from her? I think that this is a pretty similar scenario.”
Throughout his first presidency, Trump’s ire for the press continued to grow, and “fake news” became one of his favorite catchphrases.
In 2019, as he snubbed the event for a third consecutive year, he expressed more open disdain with the White House Correspondents’ Association, which had historically found a way to work with even the most prickly administrations.
“I’m going to hold a rally,” Trump told reporters at the time. “Yeah, because the dinner is so boring and so negative that we’re going to hold a very positive rally.”
With the 2020 dinner canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2025 dinner offered Trump his first opportunity to play nice with the press once again. It comes on the heels of three consecutive years with Joe Biden in attendance, and amid the WHCA’s tension with Trump, who has attempted to seize control of the White House press pool and hand-select which reporters have access to him.
However, even prior to Pope Francis’ death on April 21, White House sources had confirmed to multiple outlets that Trump would not be at the event. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also announced on Sean Spicer’s podcast in March that she would not be attending as a surrogate for him.
Comedian and Late Night With Seth Meyers writer Amber Ruffin was slated to emcee the 2025 event, however, on March 29, the WHCA announced in a statement to members that Ruffin would no longer be hosting.
“The WHCA board has unanimously decided we are no longer featuring a comedic performance this year,” WHCA President Eugene Daniels wrote in the announcement, which was shared two months after Ruffin was announced as host.
“At this consequential moment for journalism,” Daniels continued, “I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work and providing scholarship and mentorship to the next generation of journalists.”
Ruffin, 46, put things a bit more bluntly on the April 5 episode of CNN’sHave I Got News For You.
“I lost the gig because I was out here talking s—,” she told fellow hosts Roy Wood Jr. and Michael Ian Black. “And I think it’s a good thing that I lost the gig, because I was going to show up there and act all the way out.”
“It’s not anyone’s fault, because when I was hired, we were like, ‘Oh, yeah, and we’ll give it to everybody,’ ” added Ruffin. “Then they started f—— disappearing people to a prison in El Salvador. They rolled back f—— civil rights. So I was, like, if I make this equal, then I’m also a piece of s—. I can’t f—— do that.”
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