Trump Orders His Administration to Boycott This Year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Trump Orders His Administration to Boycott This Year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner

If there is a repeat of last year’s brutal roast of Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this Saturday, no one from the Trump administration will be there to hear it.

The White House announced on Tuesday that President Trump has ordered all his Cabinet secretaries and administration officials to boycott this year’s WHCA dinner. The president himself had announced several weeks ago he would skip the event, telling reporters the dinner has become “so boring and so negative.”

Trump will headline a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin instead.

Traditionally, the WHCA dinner has been a place for presidents to roast the press and poke some fun at themselves. Trump, however, has skipped the dinner every year of his presidency while escalating his feud with the media. Just before his administration announced the boycott on Tuesday morning, he called The New York Times fake” and an “Enemy of the People” again.

Last year’s dinner ended in controversy thanks to comedian Michelle Wolf’s roasting of Sanders that drew outraged complaints from the White House. Wolf’s jokes about the breadth and scope of Sanders lying to the press was somewhat confirmed by the Mueller report last week.

The WHCA tried to avoid a repeat this year by not having a comedian host the dinner. Instead, historian Ron Chernow will be the featured speaker. But that was not enough for the Trump administration.

Watch the video up top of Trump’s own infamous moment in the WHCA dinner’s spotlight during the Obama administration.

 

Gary Legum

Gary Legum has written about politics and culture for Independent Journal Review, Salon, The Daily Beast, Wonkette, AlterNet and McSweeney's, among others. He currently lives in his native state of Virginia.

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