Trump returns to correspondents' dinner for a rambling, insult-filled
speech 3 months after shooting
[July 25, 2026]
By JOCELYN NOVECK
President Donald Trump returned to the rescheduled White House
Correspondents' Association dinner Friday night, delivering a rambling,
hour-long speech that praised some journalists, took potshots at others,
made jokes about public figures' weight and intellect, and quipped about
a third presidential term.
He assured the crowd of journalists, though, that he'd scrapped the most
biting parts of his remarks.
“That was going to be a doozy,” Trump said about the speech he’d been
prepared to give in April, before a gunman upended the original dinner
and forced its postponement.
“As I said three months ago, the show must go on,” the president said to
begin his remarks, hailing the decision to reschedule the dinner. He
referred to “the attempted mass murder” that could have happened that
night in April, but then moved largely to humor — and insults.
Trump's return to the correspondents' dinner — and his promise to come
back next year as well — represented a notable moment in his
relationship with the news media, which he has attacked, sued and taken
administrative action against since he began his second term early last
year. Among the audience members were reporters he had denounced and
barred from events.
Trump’s sometimes off-color speech, which lasted just over an hour, was
full of vague potshots directed at individuals he doesn’t like — from
Jane Fonda to Bruce Springsteen to “Barack Hussein Obama.” The audience,
reacting at first with some friendly laughs, slowly quieted to scattered
titters as the insults piled up.
Among other targets of Trump’s humor: Late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and
Jimmy Kimmel; Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; California Gov. Gavin Newsom;
former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; and Trump's own speechwriters,
whose jokes he sometimes criticized even as he delivered them. Some of
the comments flirted with racism.
The president also spent some time expressing pride in the ballroom at
the Waldorf Astoria hotel, formerly the Trump International Hotel. “It’s
great to be back at a place that I know very well, because I built it,”
Trump said.
He also made reference to the journalism awards that had been handed out
earlier in the evening, most of them for stories challenging him and his
administration. “Do I have a say in those awards?” he asked with a
grimace.
He made a brief mention of the Iran war and several remarks about the
ballroom he is building at the White House. He also used the occasion to
joke about the possibility he would serve a third term — something
barred by the U.S. Constitution's 22nd Amendment.
“Just like my presidency, the second time is always better,” the
president quipped. “And the third time will be better yet.”
He added: “I’m only kidding.” Then, at the end, he donned a red cap that
said “Trump 2028” and delivered the “scoop” that he was running again.
It was a very different dinner than the previous one
Earlier, Trump had entered the ballroom to polite applause, and was
thanked for his support by outgoing White House Correspondents’
Association president Weijia Jiang of CBS News. After dinner, he then
sat through more than an hour of awards presentations.
One of the winners, Tyler Pager of the New York Times, was in fact one
of the reporters who had been subpoenaed by Trump’s Justice Department
over his reporting about Trump’s Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet. Those
subpoenas were withdrawn on Thursday in a New York courtroom — just one
of the arenas where the president, in his second term, has been seeking
to control media coverage that displeases him.
The rescheduled dinner was taking place at a smaller venue this time
that held only about 700 people. Security was markedly tighter. Guests
entered via a single entrance, through two ID checks and past a
detection dog, armed officers and security guards. There was no red
carpet and no separate cocktail receptions preceding the dinner.
[to top of second column]
|
A demonstrator holds up a sign outside the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in
Washington, site of the White House Correspondents' Dinner, Friday,
July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
“Let’s try this again,” Jiang quipped, welcoming the crowd. The
White House press corps, she noted, “always have a follow-up.”
Turning serious, she referred back to the trauma and confusion of
the original dinner in April.
“Tonight our message is this: We are back,” she said. “We will not
be intimidated. We refuse to let an act of violence have the final
word.”
Early in his speech, Trump signaled that he had decided to tone it
down. But he kept some zingers. Like this one, to the media-heavy
audience: “This is really the largest group of ‘Trump Derangement
Syndrome’ people put together at one time.”
People received awards for bravery during April shooting
Besides the pared-down approach, there was another change at
Friday’s dinner: two additional awards. One was presented to Victor
Gonzales, the Secret Service agent who was staffing a security
checkpoint in April and was struck in his protective vest.
Gonzales “placed himself directly in harm’s way and engaged the
armed suspect,” Jiang said. “He stayed in the fight and the attacker
was stopped.”
A second award was presented to the staff of the Washington Hilton
hotel, site of the first dinner, hailed for professionalism under
pressure.
The dress code this time was a looser “black tie optional,” and
dinner included grilled peach and burrata salad, lobster and beef
Wellington. The evening, as in April, featured entertainment by
mentalist Oz Pearlman — who this time got the chance to do his act..
Jiang and her fellow board members had worked hard to bring about
this WHCA dinner 2.0, not wanting to let a violent act — or the
image of colleagues hiding under tables — remain the final thought.
Announcing the rescheduling, she emphasized the dinner’s stated
purpose: “A celebration of a free press and the vital role of
journalism in our democracy for over a century.”
There's still lots of criticism of the event
But it’s also clear that some people felt the dinner should not be
rescheduled at all.
Many never thought it was much of a good look in the first place,
with the sight of journalists in formal wear cozying up to their
sources, or the objects of their reporting.
“It undermines the public faith in how the press does its work, and
it makes it look like we are pals with the people we cover,” Kelly
McBride, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, a journalism
think tank, said when the deliberations were taking place.
The new dinner came at a time of fast-increasing tension between the
media and a president who, in his second term, has tried to exert
pressure on media outlets he is unhappy with in a variety of ways.
That pressure has ranged from sanctions against members of the White
House press corps to regulatory actions through the Federal
Communications Commission to outright lawsuits. Those tensions have
only escalated since April.
Trump, though, ended with an attempt to mend fences to a point. “I
have a lot of respect for your profession,” he told the assembled
journalists. He also touted his own success, and declared: “When I'm
not around, you're all gonna be broke.”
And he concluded about the evening: “I didn't know what to expect.
It's far worse than I originally thought.”
___
Jocelyn Noveck covers the intersection of media and entertainment
for The Associated Press.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
