Will White House Correspondents' Dinner Shut Down Trump Trash Talk?

Posted in: Opinion, streaming, TV, TV, YouTube | Tagged: opinion, WHCD, White House Correspondents Dinner

Will White House Correspondents' Dinner Shut Down Trump Trash Talk?

If Donald Trump goes on the attack during tonight's White House Correspondents' Dinner (WHCD), will attendees push back. Here's why they need to...

Published Sat, 25 Apr 2026 18:18:12 -0500
by Ray Flook
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There were two very early warning signs that tonight's White House Correspondents' Dinner (WHCD) might be going a bit soft. First, the fact that Mentalist Oz Pearlman ("Oz the Mentalist") is headlining the event instead of a comedian is very telling. Of course, the biggest red flag ("orange flag"?) was the news that Donald Trump would be attending – the first time he's attended a WHCD during either of his terms (though we all remember President Barack Obama roasting the f**k out of him in 2011). Why the red flag over Trump attending, when other presidents have attended in the past? Simply put, I can't remember a POTUS during my lifetime – Democrat or Republican – who has done more to try to stomp out the freedom of the press, and replace it with a hand-picked propaganda machine the likes of which are usually reserved for North Korea and any number of dictatorial regimes.

We've seen Trump use lawsuits as a way of intimidating print and television news from doing their job, which is not to serve as a propaganda puppet for his administration. We've seen the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), NPR, and PBS defunded on the federal level. We've seen Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attempt to obstruct and dismantle the Pentagon press corps, despite court orders, and even as the U.S. wages a war with Iran (a time when real reporting and not Pentagon talking points are truly needed). We've got White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt spewing fantasy from her pulpit as a group of right-wingy podcasters and social media influencers lob questions as soft as they are. We've seen the way Trump, Leavitt, Hegseth, and others publicly accuse the press of being left-leaning and working against Trump – whining away on any number of "news channels" that are nothing more than third-rate Trump talking points brought to life.

There are more examples that we could list, but we think those are more than enough to make our point. If you're at the WHCD tonight, you have a responsibility to respond to any attacks coming from Trump. Because right now, it sounds like he's looking to walk into your backyard and metaphorically piss all over the place. If there was ever a time for the media to show the world that the freedom of the press is something worth defending, booing down Trump until he's forced to step away from the mic would be a defining moment.

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