If the White House Correspondents’ Association decides to reschedule Saturday’s dinner — aborted after a gunman breached the security perimeter — they shouldn’t invite President Donald Trump. Members need to tell the president, “Nah, we’re good.”
He needs to stay home. Trump can watch it on TV, like everyone else. I agree wholeheartedly with a letter signed by journalists opposed to Trump’s attendance at the dinner Saturday that said, “These are not normal times and this cannot be business as usual with the press standing up to applaud the man who attacks them on a daily basis.”
Trump doesn’t respect journalists or the First Amendment. He doesn’t even try to hide his antipathy and singles out female journalists and people of color for abuse, calling them “piggy,” “ugly,” and “stupid.” Although there is no justification for violence or even attempted violence, I can’t help but think it is serendipitous that the president didn’t get a chance to speak at Saturday’s annual dinner. He would have been nasty and disrespectful.
But gunfire broke out, sending attendees under tables and scrambling for the exits. Secret Service agents removed Trump and cabinet officials, and swiftly arrested 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, Calif. He has been charged with attempting to assassinate the president and weapons violations. Thankfully, no serious injuries were reported.
At a hastily assembled news conference Saturday night, Trump told reporters — many dressed in tuxedos and gowns — that he had fought to return to the hotel ballroom, but had been informed that it would be a breach of protocol.
He echoed similar sentiments the next day telling CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell on 60 Minutes, “I hope we’re going to do it again.” He added, “Tell them to get it going, and we should do it within 30 days … it’s very important that they do it again.”
The annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner is a tradition that stretches back to 1921. It’s one of the few times that White House reporters get to celebrate themselves and hand out scholarships to future journalists.
The work they do is invaluable to our democracy. Trump doesn’t deserve the honor of sitting at their head table on a night that’s all about celebrating the press. The president who calls the media “enemy of the people” shouldn’t have anything to do with the event.
It wasn’t always like this.
Before I moved to the Philadelphia area, I lived in an apartment in a building located across the street from the Washington Hilton. The annual “nerd prom,” as many call it, represented the height of sophistication even though it attracted plenty of side-eyes because of all the schmoozing that would take place between government officials and the journalists who covered them.
Reporters aren’t supposed to be besties with the people they write about. That’s especially true for journalists who cover elected officials. Journalists serve as public watchdogs. We are charged with holding power to account, and while our relationships with sources need not be hostile, they are often — out of necessity — adversarial.
With all of that in mind, it was cringey to watch reporters be photographed on the same red carpet as members of the Trump administration some of whom would just as soon lock them up.
Earlier this year, Trump administration officials arrested independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort on trumped-up legal charges after they covered an anti-immigration protest in Minnesota. Trump uses the courts to bully media organizations.
The New York Times recently reported that the FBI launched an investigation into one of its reporters after she wrote about FBI Director Kash Patel allegedly spending agency resources on his girlfriend. He also filed a $250 million lawsuit against The Atlantic, asserting that the magazine defamed him in its reporting about his alleged drinking. And yet Patel was in attendance Saturday, on journalism’s biggest night of the year.
Trump repeatedly refers to stories and articles he doesn’t like as “fake news.” He has tried for years to convince Americans that the press is “the enemy of the people” and done considerable damage to the industry’s reputation. Trump is a danger to everything that the media purport to represent.
Look, I enjoy an opportunity to get dressed up and spend time with fellow journalists at fancy events as much as anyone. But the White House Correspondents’ Association needs to do better. It can start by not rescheduling this year’s dinner. And if members do decide to reschedule, they shouldn’t invite Trump.