Trump attends rescheduled White House correspondents’ dinner

President Donald Trump praised journalists for doing an “amazing job” while also mocking reporters, political opponents and critics Friday night at a rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, returning to an event halted three months earlier by a shooting outside its original venue.

“As I said three months ago, the show must go on,” Trump said at the start of his speech after a lengthy awards ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Washington. The black-tie gala, an annual celebration of press freedom, was moved from the Washington Hilton, where a gunman fired at a security checkpoint in April.

The man charged in the shooting, Cole Tomas Allen, has pleaded not guilty to attempting to assassinate the president. Prosecutors have accused him of storming a security gate armed with guns and knives and shooting and wounding Secret Service officer Victor Gonzales before being stopped.

Friday’s dinner was dedicated in part to Gonzales and to hotel staff who helped guests during the April attack. Trump called the incident “an assault on our democracy itself” and praised aides including Pete Hegseth, Steve Miller and Tom Holman for showing “bravery” that night. “They were standing on tables, when most of you were under the tables,” he said.

The guest list was about 700 people, according to Al Jazeera, smaller than the original gathering. The Guardian reported that Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had been present in April, did not attend Friday’s dinner. Secret Service Director Sean Curran had said before the event that agents were preparing for possible trouble. “We do expect bad people to show up,” he told reporters.

Trump opened with several scripted jokes. “Just like my presidency, the second time is always better and the third time will be better yet,” he said, then raised his hands and added, “I’m only kidding.” He later placed a red “Trump 2028” hat on his head and said, “I won three times, now I’m going to do it again,” a reference to his false claim that he won the 2020 election and to his repeated suggestion that he could seek another term despite the Constitution’s two-term limit.

Much of the speech targeted opponents and journalists. Trump called the room “the largest gathering of people with Trump derangement syndrome,” told reporters “Don’t believe the fake news” while saying his war on Iran was going “extremely well,” and joked about Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy and the evening’s beef tenderloin. He mocked former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Rep. Jerry Nadler, criticized Bruce Springsteen’s appearance, said CNN’s Kaitlan Collins did not smile enough, and said he “hated” Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff while mocking his appearance.

Al Jazeera reported that Trump also called California Gov. Gavin Newsom “newscum,” questioned Rep. Ilhan Omar’s intelligence and used a joke to direct an insult at Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. After one joke about term limits drew little reaction, Trump asked the audience whether anyone understood “this whole freakin stupid speech that they wrote.”

Before Trump spoke, journalists received awards for coverage of the president and his administration. The Guardian reported that honorees included the Wall Street Journal team behind a story alleging Trump sent a “bawdy” letter to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003; Trump has sued the Journal over that reporting.

Weijia Jiang, the outgoing White House Correspondents’ Association president, framed the evening around the responsibilities of both the presidency and the press. “No matter how complicated or tense the relationship is between the press and the presidency, what we share is far more important than anything else and that is our duty: to serve the American people,” she said. She also thanked Trump for attending and said, “We are back. We will not be intimidated. We refuse to let an act of violence have the final word.”

It was Trump’s first address to the dinner in either of his two terms after he boycotted the event throughout his first term. “It matters that you came here tonight,” Jonathan Karl, chief Washington correspondent at ABC News, told him from the stage.