A brief history of Trump & the WH Correspondents’ Dinner

The year is 2011. It's the White House Correspondents' Dinner, an annual event put on by the White House Correspondents' Association that celebrates the First Amendment. For 105 years, the President has been invited every year with no exceptions.

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It also involves some roasting, which typically ends in a sort of stand-up routine by the President.

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The real estate mogul, celebrity apprentice, host, and racist Donald Trump has been relentlessly calling for the release of President Obama's birth certificate. Finally, with Trump in attendance, Obama has a chance to respond.

Say what you will about Mr. Trump, he certainly would bring some change to the White House.

It's 15 years later and Obama's jokes have become something of a prophecy. And this weekend, instead of spending time in his bedazzled Oval Office or working on his giant ballroom or Celebrating the approval of his massive gold arch by a committee of people that he himself appointed instead of all of that President Trump plans to attend the dinner until now He's broken with tradition repeatedly declining the standing invitation for a sitting president to attend So why now he was apparently asked very nicely and claimed that the association called him the GOAT.

Perhaps it's because this year, instead of hiring a comedian to attend, they hired an apolitical mentalist. Typically, it's been a comedian. Here's Michelle Wolf in 2018.

We are graced with Sarah's presence tonight. I love you as Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid's Tale.

And here's Stephen Colbert in his Colbert Report character in 2006. I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq. But last year, just weeks before the dinner, the comedian they hired, Amber Ruffin, was on a podcast where she called the Trump administration a bunch of murderers. And so they fired her and didn't replace her with any comedian at all. So now with the laughter sucked out of the room

President Trump is attending and so are many people from his administration including Brendan Carr, the very same Brendan Carr who cheered on the potential firing of Jimmy Kimmel and has continuously threatened to revoke major broadcasting licenses for content that he considers biased. Stephen Miller is also taking a break from whatever he does at night to attend, and Pete Hegseth, who continues to put more restrictions on how the press covers the military, will be in attendance as well.

And so, what will this event look like on Saturday? Trust in media is at an all-time low, in part thanks to President Trump, who has spent the better part of a decade calling any news that he doesn't like, fake news. This means many journalists are making a choice. Do they attend one of the biggest social events of the year with the people who are actively making their job harder or do they skip it in protest? Instead I'm celebrating the People's Choice Webby that you helped us win. And I want to thank Lauren, Micah,

People's Choice Webby that you helped us win. And I want to thank Lauren, Micah, Sarah from Local News International and Chris go to bed! Oh they're playing me off!