Donald Trump to Skip White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April
Donald Trump on Saturday announced that he will skip the glitzy White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) annual dinner on 29 April, to become the first US President to miss the gala in decades amidst his raging tiff with the media.
I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017
The black-tie dinner, which raises money for journalism scholarships, takes place every spring and is usually attended by the president, journalists, celebrities and Washington insiders.
The last president to miss the dinner was Ronald Reagan, who sat out because he was recovering from an assassination attempt in 1981, although he still delivered remarks by phone, CNN reported.
According to NPR, Richard Nixon was the last president to simply skip the event, doing so in 1972.
Trump’s announcement came a day after the White House excluded several major broadcasters and newspapers like The New York Times, CNN and BBC from an off-camera press briefing.
He has frequently described negative news coverage as “fake” and accused the media of being the “opposition party” and on Friday delivered his most slashing broadside yet, telling the Conservative Political Action Conference that major news outlets were "the enemy of the people”.
