The White House Correspondents' Dinner is an annual dinner organized by the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA). It began in 1921, and is traditionally attended by the president and vice president. Every president has attended at least one WHCA dinner, beginning with Calvin Coolidge in 1924. The dinner is traditionally held on the evening of the last Saturday in April at the Washington Hilton.
Prior to World War II, the annual dinner featured singing between courses, a homemade movie, and an hour-long, post-dinner show with big-name performers. Since 1983, the featured speaker has usually been a comedian, with the dinner taking on the form of a comedy roast of the president and his administration.
The dinner also funds scholarships for gifted students in college journalism programs.
Many annual dinners have been canceled or downsized due to deaths or political crises. The dinner was canceled in 1930 due to the death of former president William Howard Taft; in 1942, following the United States' entry into World War II; and in 1951, over what President Harry S. Truman called the "uncertainty of the world situation". In 1981, Ronald Reagan did not attend because he was recuperating after the attempted assassination the previous month, but he did phone in to tell a joke about the shooting. President Donald Trump did not attend during his first term, and the 2026 dinner during his second term was interrupted after shots were fired outside the ballroom. The event was subsequently postponed to July 24, where Trump did attend.
Contents
History
Until 1962, the dinner was open only to men, even though WHCA's membership included women. At the urging of Helen Thomas, President John F. Kennedy refused to attend the dinner unless the ban on women was dropped.
The 2006 dinner featured a pointed performance by Stephen Colbert, during which several of President George W. Bush's aides walked out.
During his first presidency, Donald Trump did not attend the dinners in 2017, 2018, and 2019, though he had attended as a private citizen in 2011 and 2015. Trump indicated that he might attend in 2019 since this dinner did not feature a comedian as the featured speaker. However, on April 5, 2019, he announced that he again would not attend, calling the dinner "so boring, and so negative," instead hosting a political rally that evening in Wisconsin. On April 22, Trump ordered a boycott of the dinner, with White House Cabinet Secretary Bill McGinley assembling the agencies' chiefs of staff to issue a directive that members of the administration not attend. However, some members of the administration attended pre- and post-dinner parties.
In 2017 Samantha Bee hosted a rival event to raise money for the Committee to Protect Journalists, Not the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
After the April 30, 2022, dinner, several attendees, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, tested positive for COVID-19. However, no cases of serious illness were reported as a result of the dinner.
At the 2024 White House Correspondents' Dinner, pro-Palestinian protesters shouted "Shame on you!" at arriving attendees.
Trump also declined to attend the dinner in 2025, the first year of his second presidency. Some members of his administration were also absent from the dinner and instead attended the launch party for Executive Branch, a new private club in Georgetown that is owned by Donald Trump Jr. and others with ties to the administration.
Trump attended the dinner in 2026 before evacuating after gunshots were heard. After officers secured the Washington Hilton hotel building, the guests at the dinner departed the hotel. The first lady, Melania Trump, was also in attendance and evacuated promptly alongside her husband. An alleged shooter was arrested.
Dinner criticisms
The WHCD has been criticized as an example of the close relationship between the White House press corps and the administration. The dinner has typically included a skit, either live or videotaped, by the sitting US president in which he mocks himself, for the amusement of the press corps. The press corps, in turn, hobnobs with administration officials, even those who are unpopular and are not regularly cooperative with the press. Increasing scrutiny by bloggers has contributed to added public focus on this friendliness.
After the 2007 dinner, New York Times columnist Frank Rich implied that the Times would no longer participate in the dinners. Rich wrote that the dinner had become "a crystallization of the press's failures in the post-9/11 era" because it "illustrates how easily a propaganda-driven White House can enlist the Washington news media in its shows".
Other criticism has focused on the amount of money actually raised for scholarships, which has decreased over the past few years.
The dinners have drawn increasing public attention, and the guest list grows "more Hollywood". The attention given to the guest list and entertainers often overshadows the intended purpose of the dinner, which is to "acknowledge award-winners, present scholarships, and give the press and the president an evening of friendly appreciation". This has led to an atmosphere of coming to the event only to "see and be seen". This usually takes place at pre-dinner receptions and post-dinner parties hosted by various media organizations, which are often a bigger draw and can be more exclusive than the dinners themselves.
The public airings of the controversies around the dinner from the mid-2000s onward gradually focused concern about the nature of the event. While interest in the event from entertainers, journalists, and political figures was high during the Obama administration, by the period of the Trump administration, interest gradually slowed in attending, especially after President Trump announced he would not attend, nor his staff. Business related to the weekend event slowed considerably, including at hotels, high-end restaurants, salons, caterers, and limo companies. During the Trump administration, some media companies stopped hosting parties, while other of the roughly 25 events held during the three-day period gained more prominence as signs of social status.