Trump to attend White House Correspondents’ Dinner for 1st time as president to ‘make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST and MOST SPECTACULAR’
OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
1:55 PM – Saturday, April 25, 2026
President Donald Trump is set to attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner for the first time as commander-in-chief after boycotting the event each year he was in office thus far.
The president will headline the dinner on Saturday evening at 7:00 p.m. ET at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C. Attendees usually include White House correspondents and journalists from major news organizations, senior administration officials, lawmakers and other media executives.
Trump is to deliver remarks alongside this year’s host, mentalist Oz Pearlman, who is best known for his appearances on “America’s Got Talent.” The selection of Pearlman, a magician whose claim to fame is a unique ability to read minds, as a host differs from the tradition of choosing a stand-up comedian.
“The White House Correspondents Association has asked me, very nicely, to be the Honoree at this year’s Dinner, a long and storied tradition since it began in 1924, under then President Calvin Coolidge,” Trump posted on Truth Social last month, adding that it would be his “Honor to accept their invitation.”
“In honor of our Nation’s 250th Birthday, and the fact that these ‘Correspondents’ now admit that I am truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of our Country, the G.O.A.T., according to many, it will be my Honor to accept their invitation, and work to make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER!”
“Because the Press was extraordinarily bad to me, FAKE NEWS ALL, right from the beginning of my First Term, I boycotted the event, and never went as Honoree,” he explained. “However, I look forward to being with everyone this year. Hopefully, it will be something very Special.”
(via: President Donald Trump; Truth Social)
The last appearance Trump made at the annual dinner was in 2015, not long before announcing his bid for the presidency.
Ahead of his remarks, Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, told Fox News host Charlie Hurt, “Get your popcorn ready.”
“This is going to be a time like we’ve never seen,” she said. “Everybody goes back, of course, whenever President Trump, as a citizen, went to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and President Obama at the time told jokes about him, and they say, ‘Oh, that’s the reason Donald Trump decided to run for president.’ I would push back on that claim. There are a lot of reasons Donald Trump wanted to run for president.”
Trump also attended the dinner in 2011, before the 2012 presidential election. At the time, former President Barack Obama called him out by name for questioning if Obama was born within the United States — a requirement for running for president. In light of the release of his long-form birth certificate from Hawaii in an effort to put the issue to rest, Obama jokingly played what he claimed to be his birth video, which turned out to be a few clips from the opening number of “The Lion King.”
In a rare moment between a president and a private citizen, Obama dedicated several minutes to roasting Trump, including questioning his credentials and temperament. Viewers jokingly looked back on this moment as the “origin story” for Trump’s presidency.
Lara continued, “It’s such a full-circle moment because most of the folks who are in attendance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner … are no fans of Donald Trump, but they actually desperately need Donald Trump. They love every second of Donald Trump because he gives them ratings unlike anyone else possibly can. He gives them continual information to talk about.”
“He has been preparing to go into this snake pit of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner his entire life,” she said. “He’s gonna have jokes, he’s one of the funniest people I have ever met. And I will tell you that if they don’t leave there absolutely in love with Donald Trump, I’ll be shocked.”
She added on the “Citizen McCain with Meghan McCain” podcast, “I think everyone should get ready ‘cause he’s going to do some roasting and we know that he doesn’t hold anything back.”
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