It was confirmed on Tuesday that President Donald Trump has ordered his administration to boycott the White House Correspondents Association dinner, an event he has skipped the past two years. Trump has made his disdain for the annual dinner known on more than one occasion, calling the event outright “boring” last year. This year, the president plans to hold a 2020 campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on the night of the dinner.
“White House Cabinet Secretary Bill McGinley announced that all Trump administration officials are being ordered to boycott the dinner,” The Washington Times reported Tuesday.
A senior official from the administration said Trump “and members of his administration will not attend the White House Correspondents Dinner this year. Instead, Saturday evening President Trump will travel to Green Bay, Wisconsin where he will hold a campaign rally.”
“We’re looking forward to an enjoyable evening of celebrating the First Amendment and great journalists past, present, and future,” said WHCA president Olivier Knox in response to the news, according to the Times.
Hosting the event in 2018, raunchy comedian Michelle Wolf took heat for making remarks widely castigated as tasteless and sexist toward White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was in attendance at the event. “She burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smokey eye. Like maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s lies. It’s probably lies,” she mocked Sanders, The Daily Wire previously reported.
Wolf also called Trump a “p****.” “Of course, Trump isn’t here, if you haven’t noticed, he’s not here. And I know, I know, I would drag him here myself, but it turns out the president of the United States is the one p**** you’re not allowed to grab,” the comedian said.
Trump ripped the dinner last April on Twitter, pronouncing the event “DEAD.”
“The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is DEAD as we know it. This was a total disaster and an embarrassment to our great Country and all that it stands for. FAKE NEWS is alive and well and beautifully represented on Saturday night!” he wrote.
At a rally in Michigan on the same night as the dinner last year, Trump continued to trash the event and the media, explaining to his supporters that he’s in a no-win situation if he attends. “Is this better than that phony Washington White House Correspondents’ dinner?” he asked the crowd.
“Is this more fun? I could be up there tonight smiling, like, I love when they’re hitting you, shot after shot. These people, they hate your guts and you know, you gotta smile,” he continued. “And if you don’t smile they’ll say, ‘He was terrible. He couldn’t take it.’ And if you do smile, they’ll say, ‘What was he smiling about?!’ You know, there’s no win.”
President Trump has been outspoken in his criticism of biased and “fake” media coverage, routinely branding the “fake news” media the “enemy of the people.”