White House Correspondents’ Dinner Flies First Amendment Flag High Even With Trump Snub, Few Hollywood Power Players In Attendance

A chorus line of past presidents from past years showed up via old video to give an edited mash-up speech, but there was no current POTUS, no VP, no roast by a comedian and few Hollywood power players at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner tonight in Washington DC.

Yet, with Donald Trump still yet to make his WHCD debut as president, White House Correspondents’ Association president Eugene Daniels had no intention of burying the lede Saturday of the barricades up between the current White House and institutional media in America. “We journalists are a lot of things,“ Daniels exclaimed to a standing ovation in his First Amendment celebrating closing remarks on this 96th day of Trump 2.0. “What we are not is the opposition. What we are not is the enemy of the people, and what we are not is the enemy of the state.”

Ending the WHCD earlier than in past years, Daniels opened his comments by addressing the elephant not in the Washington Hilton ballroom: “Every year we invite the president to this dinner. For decades, presidents on both sides of the political spectrum get gussied up and join us. I want to be clear about something, we don’t invite presidents of the United States to this because it’s for them. We don’t invite them because we want to cozy up to them or curry favor. We don’t only extend invites to the presidents who say they love journalists or who say they are defenders of the First Amendment in a free press. We invite them to remind them that they should be. We invite them to demonstrate that those of us who have chosen the public service of journalism aren’t doing it because we love flights on Air Force One or walking into the Oval Office. It is to remind them why a strong Fourth Estate is essential for democracy.”

Still, while CAA and UTA had parties this weekend as the WHCD hit its 104^th anniversary, the so-called Nerd Prom 2025 did lack the usual cadre of Oscar winners, Emmy winners and legion of the deep pocketed Beverly Hills donor class.

Yes, White Lotus Season 3’s Jason Issacs was at the WHCD, as was the OG Wonder Woman Lynda Carter, Emmy winner Alex Borstein and Breaking Bad alum Dean Norris. And yes, the cable, network print and online media elite (including Deadline’s DC Bureau chief Ted Johnson) were in the house, along with besieged NYC Mayor Eric Adams.  

Even with short lived ex-White House press secretary Sean Spicer and CNN vet Frank Sesno holding down the fort on the occasionally technically challenged C-SPAN, and MSNBC broadcasting the gathering entrée to dessert with commentary from Molly Jong-Fast and others, the vibe was very low-key. Low-key, but perhaps no less poignant compared to past years, with or without Trump in attendance

“I know this has been an extremely difficult year for all,” a distinctly understated WHCA boss and MSNBC host Daniels told the well-heeled crowd at the outset of the 2025’s WHCD. “It’s been difficult for this association. We’ve been tested, attacked.”

Certainly Trump 2.0 has seen the WHCA stripped of its pool rotation power, the Associated Press cast out from covering White House events, and the briefing room hierarchy overturned. With the free press and the rule of law under threat from Trump now, the WHCA did itself no favors hiring Amber Ruffin to provide comic relief and then unceremoniously dumping the Have I Got News For You regular. The lack of a muscular public reaction to the AP being under fire from the Trump team has also exposed divisions in the WHCA.

Still, even with cameras going to Yamiche Alcindor thinking the NBC News reporter was The Grio’s April Ryan, tonight was, as Daniels said onstage “just us.” In that excellence and honestly in journalism over the past year was centerstage.

The award and scholarship portions of the evening began with ABC News’ Rachel Scott recognized for her coverage of the assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, PA with the Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage Under Deadline Pressure. (See the full list of WHCD Award winners here)

Looking at the big story standing in front of the media during the last administration, there was a rebuke of journalists covering the Executive Mansion tonight from Axios’ Alex Thompson.

While praising the work of the WHCA, the Constitution and plugging his upcoming book co-written with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Aldo Beckman Award for Overall Excellence in White House Coverage winner Thompson noted the declining trust in the media. More specific to the ballroom crowd, Thompson also addressed the failure of many in the room to be honest with themselves and the public about the extent of the “deception” of Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and the “cover-up” of the octogenarian 46^th POTUS’s health by his aides and supporters up until that disastrous debate last year.

Then still a candidate for reelection, President Biden attended and glowingly spoke of the power of a free press in 2024 at the WHCD. Offering kudos to Biden for being a “good man,” SNL Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost was the after-POTUS comedian.

At the same time, with POTUS just back from Pope Francis’ funeral and up at his New Jersey estate, the MAGA crowd this year were holding their own shindig across town at the Willard Hotel. The meet-up was the debut of the Donald Trump Jr. co-founded Executive Branch private club. Unlike the WHCD, Executive Branch’s $100,000 membership fee is intended to keep its goings-on far from the eyes of the press.

In that context, an immediately acclaimed speech by outgoing WHCA leader Daniels summed up the state of the media in America by evoking the months the Wall Street Journal‘s Evan Gershkovich spent behind bars in Russia and added that “attacks on journalists don’t stop at our borders.”

“Every single day, journalists in this country face threats of intimidation, lawsuits and violence,” Daniels said, showing up in many ways as the surprise guest the WHCA had hinted at for the WHCD. “Those attacks are meant to do one thing, stop us from sharing the truth with the people. To our friends at the Associated Press. You have taken on more than you should have to but what you have held firm to from the very beginning is that your fight is not about you. It’s about the ability of every single person in this room to make free and independent editorial decisions without government interference.”

A very public club and proof the WHCD doesn’t need a POTUS to own the night in DC.