The rescheduled White House correspondents’ dinner is under way in Washington, three months after the original event was scrapped in April when a man fired a shotgun at a security checkpoint outside the ballroom.
Donald Trump arrived at the Waldorf Astoria for the rescheduled gala, which organizers say will feel smaller and closer than the one that had been evacuated after shots were fired in the hotel in a suspected targeting of the president and his administration.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, promised earlier that Trump’s speech would be “a combination of unifying yet vicious, and serious yet hilarious, all at the same time if you can imagine that”.
The usually celebratory dinner is dedicated in part to Victor Gonzales, a Secret Service officer who was shot and wounded that night in April while helping stop the gunman, and hotel staff who helped guests during the attack.
The man charged for the shooting, Cole Allen, has pleaded not guilty to attempting to assassinate the president.
An advance team spent weeks putting together a security plan for the new venue, and Sean Curran, the US Secret Service director, told reporters this week that agents were braced for trouble even at the black-tie dinner. “We do expect bad people to show up,” he said.
While it is customary for presidents to address the annual White House correspondents’ dinner, Friday’s speech will be the first Trump has made at the event in either of his two terms – he boycotted it throughout his first – and will be watched closely, given his long-running conflict with the press corps in the room.
He has sued multiple news organizations over their coverage of him, and routinely dismisses unfavorable stories as “fake news”.
Trump’s administration has gone further still, barring the Associated Press from the White House press pool and limiting other journalists’ access to the Pentagon.
Missing from the guest list this time: Melania Trump, JD Vance and Marco Rubio, who were all there in April.
