US President Trump skips White House Corresponents’ Dinner again
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Saturday, April 28, 2018
US President Donald Trump decided, for the second time during his presidency, to not attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, held at a Washington, D.C. Hilton Hotel Ballroom. Instead of attending the dinner, Trump chose to have a campaign-like event in Washington Township, Michigan.
Last year, Trump was widely criticized for not attending the dinner unlike all of his predecessors going back to the first dinner in 1944. The annual dinner is one of the largest events for Washington, D.C. newsmakers, being held in such a large ballroom that parts of it are actually in Virginia.
The dinner brings together Washington D.C. bureau reporters from all of the major media outlets with celebrities and politicians. Unique to this dinner is an invitation extended to a comedian to perform a lighthearted roast of the president, political leaders, celebrities, reporters and others. The keynote is reserved for the president giving a comedic address then thanking the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), the honored journalist selected each year, and the leadership of the WHCA.
Trump did attend the 2011 dinner prior to his presidency, where he was a frequent target of comedian Seth Meyers and President Barack Obama. Obama’s address about Trump started after releasing his ‘birth video’, which was the opening scene of Disney’s The Lion King, proving he is an American, alluding to Trump’s claim of Obama actually being from Kenya.
Obama went on to say, “Now Trump can go on to tackle the real stuff like did we fake the moon landing? What happened at Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”
Meyers added, “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.” When the CSPAN broadcast cameras focused on his table, Trump did not laugh at the jokes. Trump’s declining the 2017 invitation, the selected comedian Hasan Minhaj filled the time reserved for the president’s turn to roast, with a harder satirical effort on Trump’s immigration ban.
The selected 2018 comedian Michelle Wolf, made several comments about the White House representative at the dinner, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders. Wolf made intended comedic remarks on Huckabee-Sandars appearance by saying, “I actually really like Sarah. I think she’s very resourceful … She burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s lies. It’s probably lies.”
Ivanka Trump was also a target of Wolf’s comedy by saying, “She was supposed to be an advocate for women. But it turns out, she’s about as helpful to women as an empty box of tampons.”
Wolf’s speech had mixed reviews due to the intended light comedy turned borderline personal attacks and sexually explicit comedy. The comments about Huckabee-Sanders and Ivanka Trump lacked laughter for the apparent body shaming and violating the media’s unwritten policy of not make comments about First Family children, regardless of age.