WH correspondents ass whca
see natl press club?
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AN 4 26
NO LNX
The troubling truth about the White House Correspondents' Dinner
D. Earl Stephens April 21, 2026
The 2026 White House Correspondents' Dinner is this Saturday, so let me be blunt: If you fancy yourself a journalist, and I hear you were within a mile of this event I will cut you off cold.
Anybody who decides to share the stage with the greatest threat to a free press and the United States of America in my lifetime, the appalling Donald J. Trump, should never be allowed to carry a press pass again.
I’ve had more than enough of these phonies disgracing what was once one of the most important vocations in the world. By checking their backbones and credibility at the door to self-serving events like these, they are going out of their way to make a mockery out of the profession.
Before cutting them to pieces, and laying them bare, I will make exceptions to any so-called journalist who attends this nauseating event and makes a loud point of standing up, turning his or her back, and walking out of the place the minute Trump begins to run his big, fat mouth.
Otherwise, the rest of them can all go straight to hell.
Truth is, many people who have worked for and with me in the business over the years will know I never had a soft spot for this sort of stupid back-patting gala of me-first media elites, but tolerated it through clenched teeth.
Every person who attends this event knows full well they are doing so to make news, instead of cover it. They know that this is one of journalism’s highest crimes.
Unfortunately these days, too much of the attempted journalism I see from our corporate media is nothing but a series of high crimes.
Most of the people who will be shoving their mugs in front of the cameras Saturday night are the same lost souls who were unable to spot one of the most significant news stories in United States history — the attack on democracy — in the run-up to the 2024 election, and instead covered it like some meaningless, back-and-forth horse race.
Even they should be able to see where that has gotten us now, as our democracy teeters on the edge of extinction.
It’s absolutely perfect then, that Weijia Jiang, is the current president of the stupid association hosting this spoiled dinner. Jiang works as a correspondent at CBS “News” — the place that has made a pathetic spectacle of itself by surrendering to the man and his administration they have invited to spit all over everybody, and the notion of free speech in America.
Here was Trump’s noxious, public response to Jiang’s insane invitation last month:
“The White House Correspondents Association has asked me, very nicely, to be the Honoree at this year’s Dinner. It will be my Honor to accept their invitation, and work to make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER!”
Oh, well, since they asked him “very nicely ….”
How is it they STILL can’t understand they are dealing with a spoiled toddler holstering nuclear codes in his soiled diaper, who needs consequences, not coddling?
Jiang continued to outdo herself with this quote:
“(The dinner) reinforces the importance of the First Amendment in our democracy. Our choice to gather as journalists, newsmakers and the president in the same room is a reminder of what a free press means to this country and why it must endure.”
Sorry, and excuse my French, but what the f--- does that even mean?
Because gathering together in a ballroom and rubbing greasy elbows with a man who has called you “the enemy of the people” and your work “fake” has to be one of the weakest, most pathetic things I have ever seen.
You know what really exhibits the meaning of a free press? Holding power to account, Weijia.
Good God.
You are making it crystal clear you have zero respect for the business that I, and thousands of others gave our professional lives to. You are making fools of the journalists who paid the ultimate sacrifice by laying their lives down to tell us all what was happening on the battlefield, the storm-ravaged country, or myriad other dangerous places of upheaval around the globe.
And what of the journalists who covered the attack on the United States Capitol January 6, 2021, by the man you are honoring Saturday? The very man who has since pardoned the thugs who stomped law enforcement officers to near death and threatened to murder politicians that day.
Unless, as the ace reporters you somehow fancy yourselves, you really don’t think Trump had anything to do with the violence that day …
What is wrong with you people? Does it mean THAT much to you to fall at the fat, little feet of a sick, demented man who is trying to end us just as sure as I am typing this?
How about getting to the bottom of that, instead of some overpriced, dirty martini.
Among other heinous things, Trump has relentlessly attacked, and banned the Associated Press from the White House, defunded Public media, defended the Saudis for their brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, pulled credentials from news organization that have covered the Pentagon for years, and raped one of the most important papers in the world, Stars and Stripes, where I spent 11 years of my career.
He has called women reporters like Weijia Jiang “horrible” “stupid” “ugly” and “piggy.”
And it somehow gets worse …
From reporting in the Daily Beast Monday:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who last week compared the media to the Pharisees, a vilified sect cited in the Bible, is expected to sit at a table with CBS News.
This is almost too appalling to type.
I see more than 250 former broadcast journalists, including Dan Rather, Ann Curry and Sam Donaldson, delivered a letter Monday urging the dinner’s organizers “to forcefully demonstrate opposition to President Trump’s efforts to trample freedom of the press.”
The letter starts this way:
“We, the undersigned, call upon the White House Correspondents’ Association to use the occasion of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, to forcefully demonstrate opposition to President Trump’s efforts to trample freedom of the press.”
It goes onto to say:
“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.”
And:
“Continuing in that spirit, we believe the White House Correspondents Association should take stronger action by issuing—from the podium—a forceful defense of freedom of the press and condemnation of those who threaten that freedom, followed by a standing toast to the First Amendment and a pledge to continue upholding such a critical cornerstone of our democracy.”
I respect them, and appreciate their efforts, but doing my best folksy, deep-voiced Rather impersonation I inject this:
“Do not let the truth get in the way of a good story.”
The truth is, the normalization of the abominable Trump by our corporate media has had a more devastating consequence to our democracy than just about anything I can think of.
They have normalized racism, abuse, toxic dishonesty, and even treason.
On Saturday they will normalize authoritarianism, by standing alongside a fascist thug, who has spent the past year-plus taking a wrecking ball to our White House, erecting statues carrying his repulsive name, and hanging banners of his ugly face from our public buildings to honor himself instead of America.
He is treating Washington D.C., like it is just another one of garish country clubs.
Or did the White House “working press” somehow miss all that on their way to honoring themselves Saturday, and forgetting who they are really supposed to serve: the American public.
(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.)
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no mention of don lemon?
You can’t celebrate the First Amendment with Donald Trump
Written by Matt Gertz
:{Published 03/03/26
The White House Correspondents Association has decided that now is the time to link arms with President Donald Trump. After Trump claimed Monday night on Truth Social that the group had “asked me, very nicely, to be the Honoree” at the annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner, its president, CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang, confirmed in a press release that he had accepted its invitation.*
The White House Correspondent’s Dinner — an annual event in which D.C.’s top journalists rub elbows with the people they cover and an odd array of celebrities — is, at its best, an unseemly affair excused by the conceit, as Jiang put it in her press release, that it is “a dinner that celebrates the First Amendment.” Under past administrations, there was a benefit to have the president attend the event and give a speech in which he would inevitably pay tribute to the freedom of the press.
But as a matter of principle, you can either have a dinner that celebrates the First Amendment or you can have a dinner that features Donald Trump. You can’t have both because the president holds the freedom of the press in contempt and is using the administration to hammer reporters into compliance with his whims — and everyone knows it.
Trump’s White House violated the First Amendment by punishing the AP. The president kicked off his second term by barring Associated Press reporters from the White House press pool and other events because the AP continued referring to the “Gulf of Mexico” instead of adopting Trump’s new “Gulf of America” moniker. When a Trump-appointed judge ordered the AP’s access restored on the grounds that this violated the First Amendment, the White House sidestepped the ruling by eliminating the press pool’s dedicated slot for wire service reporters.
The Pentagon replaced its press corps with Trumpist propagandists. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News propagandist, has overseen the replacement of credible reporters with MAGA shills. After handing the workspaces of national news outlets to right-wing publications and barring unescorted reporters from much of the building, in September the department rolled out stringent new reporting guidelines that nearly every member of the established press corps refused to sign on the grounds that it would make them “stenographers parroting press releases.” They were subsequently replaced by far-right outlets and influencers willing to accept those terms.
At Trump’s behest, the Justice Department targets journalists. Trump ranted about the “fake news” during a March 2025 speech at DOJ headquarters, instructing its employees to “watch for” their “totally illegal” behavior. Attorney General Pam Bondi subsequently rescinded the previous administration’s restrictions protecting journalists from prosecutorial scrutiny. Several journalists, including former CNN host Don Lemon, were arrested in January and charged with federal crimes in connection with their filming of a protest inside a Minnesota church. The same month, the FBI conducted an unprecedented search of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson’s home, seizing her devices as part of a leak investigation.
Trump has also suggested that Bondi could prosecute critical reporters for “hate speech” on the grounds that “you treat me so unfairly, it’s hate,” and said media pollsters whose surveys show he is unpopular “should be investigated for ELECTION FRAUD.”
The FCC crackdown on free speech. Trump has frequently called for the Federal Communications Commission to rescind the broadcast licenses of ABC, CBS, and NBC in retaliation for coverage he finds unfavorable. While taking those networks off the air is not actually within the FCC’s power, its Trumpy chairman, Brendan Carr, is leveraging its authority to cudgel them into line, leading to the censoring of Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.
An authoritarian plan for America’s media. Trump emulates the authoritarian policies of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who dismantled his country’s independent news media by steering critical outlets into the hands of his cronies. CBS News, the social media platform TikTok, and Paramount’s movie studios have already come under the thumb of the pro-Trump billionaires Larry and David Ellison — and CNN, along with HBO and Warner’s movie business, could soon follow after Trump’s threats of regulatory retribution influenced their sale.
Trump’s endless lawsuits over journalism he doesn’t like.ABC News and CBS News faced lawsuits from Trump they could have won over coverage he didn’t like, but after Trump’s reelection, their parent companies capitulated and settled them. Trump is currently suing The New York Times and several of its reporters for $15 billion over its coverage of his businesses; The Wall Street Journal, two of its reporters, several related entities, and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, for $10 billion over coverage of Trump’s relationship with notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; and The Des Moines Register and its pollster, J. Ann Selzer, for publishing poll results that showed Trump trailing in Iowa in October 2024.
Trump is also currently suing the Pulitzer Prize Board for defamation over its 2018 award to the Times and the Post for their reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
The WHCA’s Jiang should probably consult with the group’s lawyers before announcing the “awards honoring excellent journalism” she said would be given at the event — if the “wrong” honoree wins, the president attending the dinner to celebrate the First Amendment may respond with a lawsuit.
Trump is well aware that the media establishment is capitulating to his will.
“You know at some point, they give up,” he said of media owners in an interview last year with The Atlantic. “At some point they say, No más, no más.”
Now it’s the WHCA’s turn to surrender.
*Notably, Jiang did not address Trump’s assertion that he would be the dinner’s “Honoree.” That's almost certainly a lie designed to humiliate the press — Trump loves grinding them into the dirt, which is what we should expect from the forthcoming event.
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