Another Day, Another Dinner

Here’s all you need to know about Trump’s Correspondents’ Dinner:

President Donald Trump attacked a slew of journalists and some of his favorite political foils at a slimmed-down redo of the White House correspondents’ dinner on Friday, comparing one female reporter to a transgender social media star, mocking politicians’ physical appearances, and bringing his audience to mostly stunned silence for more than an hour before pulling out a red Trump 2028 cap and declaring he was running for another term.

I stayed up to watch this farrago of bad jokes, self-promotion and insults, wondering why I did so. I couldn’t help thinking about the time, some many years ago, that I attended one of these events. I’ve talked about this before (from a 2018 perspective) but there are still lessons to be learned. So bear with me.

I attended one of these dinners at the Hilton back in 1994 when I was working in Washington doing media relations for a big labor union. It was an honor, yes, and fun to talk with people like Wolf Blitzer and Frank Luntz over drinks at intermission. I bought a tuxedo, worn maybe once after, and enjoyed how Bill Clinton handed out mostly softball barbs. The riposte was conveyed by, of all people, Al Franken, long before his senatorial days.

We are not going to return to these days of cordial insider gibing and sarcasm, and that may be a good thing. Recent attendance has been inflated by Hollywood celebs and other publicity seekers, and the dinner has become a media event celebrating, to no one’s satisfaction, political bias. Trump has stayed away two years running.

Part of this change is owing to what political journalism has become—a smug enterprise in which the Hannitys and Maddows have starred. And much of what passes for informed political reporting is simply ignored by the plain folks. They seem to look at the political media as just another part of the elitist establishment. I don’t know how you fix that one.

The fraught relations between the White House and the press were not lost upon the 700 or so who managed to attend Friday night’s event. Only the toadies laughed at Trump’s forced jokes and gibes, his attacks on his political enemies. And we heard again how great his ballroom would be. It was Trump at his most garrulous and catty self.

CNN’s Van Jones had the last word, mocking the president for turning into “rabid grizzly Trump, who’s kind of wandering around the backyard attacking things.”