President Donald Trump attended his first-ever White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, with this 12 months’s rescheduled gala held Friday evening in Washington, D.C., and delivered some pointed remarks to the assembled journalists in a rambling speech that stretched on for just over an hour — and through which he insulted several journalists, politicians and celebs that he’s sparred with.
“I’m delighted to be here on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Amazing people, a whole lot of those who I like,” Trump said. “Some I don’t like in any respect, but I respect most of them.”
At first, Trump seemed unsure of the tone he desired to impart, and suggested that — compared with barbs he was planning to deliver at the unique WHCA dinner, which was disrupted by a gun-wielding attacker — he was pulling his punches. “I said, ‘What will we do here? Is that this presupposed to be fun? Am I presupposed to be serious? Am I presupposed to be a comedian?’ So I suppose you said, perhaps a little bit little bit of all the things.”
But Trump quickly began bashing the press. “This evening it’s really all concerning the fake news media and your handling of prizes — writing and producing and performing made-up stories just like the Academy Awards,” Trump said. The Academy Awards “was once the the epitome of rankings outside of the Super Bowl… Now it’s down within the dumps. No person wants to observe it anymore because they took on Trump. They hit me all night long.”
He told the journalists, “once I’m gone. You’re all going to be broke. Your online business model goes to be finished. No, it’s true. After I’m not around, you’re going to be broke. There’s not going to be anybody to report on. No person gives a rattling about anybody else.”
Trump said that “mostly, I’ve given up on you and the media, in order that now I just gave up on you, and I’m primary on TikTok. Did you see that?… I gave up on you, people. I gave up on traditional press, and it obviously worked because we did win in a landline” (he meant “landslide,” but that is just not true). Trump boasted that “I used to be in a position to get [TikTok] sold to a gaggle of very wealthy people, mostly Americans.”
Trump said he didn’t attend past WHCA dinners because “I assumed the press treated me very, very unfairly, and I don’t know. I feel I made the fitting decision because they should go where perhaps you’re not wanted, but they did want me. They wanted me for rankings, and so they wanted me for other reasons, but not for love. And I said, ‘You already know, I’m not going to go.’ First time that ever happened… And I didn’t go for 4 years because I got treated terribly by the press.”
This 12 months, Trump noted, the WHCA decided to not have a comedian. “They considered using Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon,” Trump said. “These guys — they’re terrible. They’re terrible. Stephen Colbert. These are people without talent… They don’t have any talent, but they should not comedians. They’re not funny people. They’re indignant people. They’re sick people.”
Trump took the rostrum at 9:33 p.m. and held forth for about 64 minutes.
Trump joked that Paramount CEO David Ellison, whose company owns CBS News (“He bought it, spent a whole lot of money, and he’s going to make, I feel, unbelievable changes and keep a few of the great stuff going”), told him that next 12 months Ellison will rename the WHCA dinner “the Trump White House Correspondents’ Dinner.” “He told me that, and I like that very much. We’re going to alter the name of it, OK?” Trump said, alluding to his unsuccessful effort so as to add his name to the Kennedy Center.
He also said at one other point in his talk, “I, for one, wish Bari Weiss all the very best at CBS News. She’s an exquisite woman,” which drew an audible murmur from the audience.
He said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt “could have one in every of the toughest jobs within the White House” because she has to “take care of all of you on a regular basis, and you may be very difficult. You’ll be able to be very, very difficult people. But I’m probably being a little bit bit oversensitive. Sometimes I actually do think that a few of you don’t like me.”
He quipped, “This place is the really the most important group of Trump derangement syndrome people ever put together at one time, I think,” eliciting a smattering of laughter. (The president apparently believes that Trump derangement syndrome is an actual medical condition.)
Trump slammed a few of his favorite perceived enemies. He said the winner of the bottom rankings and the “lowest IQ on television” was “actually Don Lemon,” whom Trump called “the dumbest man on television. I said, , whenever you say some things, you never make a comeback. It’s not like, ‘Oh gee, hey Don, let’s have dinner some night.’”
Trump also took aim at CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, who won the 2026 WHCA award for broadcast for her coverage of Trump’s confrontation within the Oval Office showdown with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in February 2025. Trump said, “I need to personally congratulate CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on receiving her award” but said it “was all about me. It’s a fake. She shouldn’t get the award. It was a fake, but I didn’t mind.” (In a press release issued as Trump was still speaking, Mark Thompson, chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide, said: “We stand by our journalists and the integrity and fair mindedness with which the CNN team reports the news. Honest, accurate journalism may sometimes irritate politicians, but our right to report and present that reporting to the general public without government interference is fully protected by the U.S. Structure. CNN will proceed to exercise this right.”)
Trump then went on a weird tangent about Collins, calling her “a young, lively woman” but that “she never smiles. I said, ‘Kaitlan, do you ever smile? Smile. You’ve a pleasant position. You’re at CNN fake news. You need to be a glad person. Just smile, Kaitlan. Just smile.’” Then Trump tried to joke that Collins had signed “a serious recent sponsorship. But then I informed her that it wasn’t her on the Bud Light can. It was Dylan Mulvaney,” Trump said, referring to transgender influencer who was enlisted by the beer company in 2023, a campaign that suffered an enormous backlash. “Dylan Mulvaney cost Bud like $35 million in market cap. It was the worst industrial ever made, by the way in which. For those few those who wish to hear that, most individuals don’t care, but I might. I wouldn’t wish to hire Dylan anytime soon,” said Trump.
About one other CNN anchor, Anderson Cooper, Trump said: “I like Anderson usually because he’s covered me well for a few years, and he went bad as soon as I went for politics. But for years, he loved interviews. I did so many interviews with him, and he was great. But , he’s got a little bit different persuasion than me, in some ways actually.”
Trump also lashed out at California Gov. Gavin Newsom, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer, Rosie O’Donnell (a “sick older woman”), CNN’s Jake Tapper and Bruce Springsteen. About Springsteen, Trump said: “What the hell happened to that guy? He looks like hell… I’m sure he doesn’t like the way in which I look, but I don’t look so bad.” He complained that Springsteen made “4 political speeches in his three-hour show,” leading Trump to joke, “The tour has been renamed ‘Bored within the USA,’ and his recent song was so bad.”
Trump, after all, has had a hostile relationship with the press. He not only routinely complains that news outlets are “fake news” and insults individual journalists but he has also sued multiple news outlets over coverage he dislikes, including the Recent York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC News and CBS News’ “60 Minutes.”
On the WHCA dinner, the Wall Street Journal reporters behind the paper’s story a few birthday letter purportedly written by Trump to Jeffrey Epstein won the $10,000 Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability award. Trump, who has denied he penned the Epstein letter, filed a lawsuit over the story, demanding $20 billion in damages. The Journal’s lawyers called Trump’s lawsuit “an affront to the First Amendment.” A judge dismissed his original suit but Trump refiled the grievance in May 2026 and the case is pending. On the dinner, Trump awkwardly shook the hands of the Journal reporters who were there to receive the prize, then threw up his hands in mock resignation and returned to his seat.
“This has not been a simple evening. All these awards… Do I get a say in those awards?” Trump joked during his remarks.
Near the tip of his long speech, Trump joked that he would run for a fourth term — and he donned a “Trump 2028” hat — repeating his baseless claim that he actually won the 2020 U.S. presidential election. (He didn’t.) Trump said he plans to return to the correspondents’ dinner in 2027.
Meanwhile, Trump also made a joke on the expense of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his secretary of Health and Human Services. “Bobby Kennedy’s right here. He personally ran over the cow in his automotive… He brought it here so that you can eat tonight,” Trump said. “So it’s very fresh. And Bobby also suggested an appetizer featuring his favorite cut of male raccoon roadkill. But we drew the road at that, Cheryl. We said, no, we’re not going to do this. We’re not doing that. We love Bobby.”
Friday’s WHCA dinner took place on the Waldorf Astoria hotel in D.C. It featured a performance by mentalist Oz Pearlman, whereas the association has traditionally invited a comedian to roast the sitting president.
The WHCA dinner was rescheduled after the primary gathering, on April 25, was interrupted by an evident assassination attempt on Trump. The gunman who crashed through security on the Washington Hilton was apprehended and charged. Trump frolicked discussing the April attack in his remarks, thanking the law enforcement personnel who subdued the suspect.
Outgoing WHCA president Weijia Jiang, senior White House correspondent for CBS News, delivered opening remarks at the beginning of the event. She then alternated hosting duties with Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich, who will serve because the organization’s president for the 2026-27 term.