This year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner will be weird.
It’s the first that President Donald Trump has attended as president — a full circle return to the moment that some believe pushed him into running for the Oval Office to begin with: when former President Barack Obama joked about Trump from the stage in 2011.
Correspondents covering the White House work day in and day out to deliver crucial information to the public and hold the president accountable. Some reporters are wary of a president attending the event who is openly hostile towards the press, and who — along with Congress — has worked to eliminate federal funding for public media institutions, including PBS News.
Compounding the night’s bizarre dynamic will be the presentation of the Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability to The Wall Street Journal for its coverage of “bawdy” letters that acquaintances of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein sent him for his 50th birthday, including, allegedly, one from Trump. The president denies it and sued the Journal over it. He’ll be reminded of all this Saturday when the newspaper’s team gets an award on the same stage where he’s expected to sit, though some reporting indicates he may leave before that happens.
File photo: A portrait of President Donald Trump hangs in a gallery of presidents in a hallway at the Washington Hilton during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, on April 29, 2017. Trump did not attend that year’s event. Photo by Jonathan Ernst/Reuters.
I have attended several of these dinners, first as a White House producer for CNN back in 2017 and most recently when former President Joe Biden attended in 2024. It’s difficult to overstate how jam-packed the Hilton ballroom is (kudos to the waitstaff that serves thousands of people dinner at once). It will likely be even more difficult to weave in and out of the crammed seating with the added Secret Service protection and footprint.
Trump is expected to deliver remarks. I’ll be keenly observing what happens Saturday night. Here are four things I’m watching out for.
Iran War. Whatever Trump says about the war with Iran will add to the changing and sometimes conflicting narrative around the war and when it will end. I asked the president in the Oval Office on Thursday about the timeline for the war. He initially said the U.S. intervention would last four to six weeks.
Watch the president’s Thursday remarks on Iran in the player above.
“I also took a little break,” Trump said, referring to the indefinite ceasefire right now between the U.S. and Iran, adding that, “I could make a deal right now.”
Trump vs. the press. Does the president, who has often disparaged journalists, and as recently as Thursday called one of my lines of inquiry a “stupid question,” go after the press during this event? How will reporters react to his speech? (At least one news organization — Huffington Post — is skipping the event.) There’s always a reaction camera that scans the crowd. Watch that feed.
The mega media merger. Will Trump mention the Warner Bros.Paramount merger that could blend the CBS News and CNN newsrooms into one? A former executive at one of these places told me this week they think there will be substantial layoffs at both newsrooms if this deal goes through. The acquisition deal isn’t a done deal yet. Federal regulators still need to approve it.
How long will Trump speak? This has now become a prediction game of sorts in Washington, D.C. I was asked no less than three times in the last 24 hours, including by a curious ambassador, how long Trump will speak at the dinner. I predict about 30 minutes. But the president sometimes speaks at his own rallies for up to 90 minutes. I’m sure a prediction market will pop up on this!
