Trump to headline 2026 White House Correspondents’ Dinner for the first time as president

President Trump is attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday for the first time as commander-in-chief — after boycotting the annual event last year and each year during his first term.

The dinner will take place on Saturday, April 25, at the Washington Hilton.

“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 his Truth Social last month, adding that it would be his “Honor to accept their invitation.” 

TRUMP’S RETURN TO THE WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER MARKS A POLITICAL JOURNEY COMING FULL CIRCLE 

President Donald Trump interacting with the media.  (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

The White House Correspondents’ Association’s president, Weijia Jiang said that they were “happy” with the president’s decision to attend.

“For more than 100 years, the journalists of the White House Correspondents’ Association have enjoyed an evening with the president,” Jiang said in a statement last month. “We’re happy the president has accepted our invitation and look forward to hosting him.”

DAN RATHER AMONG 200 JOURNALISTS DEMANDING TRUMP BE CALLED OUT AT WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER

The president had skipped the event in years past, saying that decision was due to the press being “extraordinarily bad” to him.

Despite the annual invitation and Trump’s acceptance, hundreds of journalists are going after the president, having signed an open letter urging the White House Correspondents’ Association to call out the president and “forcefully demonstrate opposition” to his “efforts to trample freedom of the press.”

“The dinner has long served as a symbol of the vital and irreplaceable role of a free press in American democracy and a celebration of the First Amendment and the journalists who uphold it. President Trump’s systematic, sustained, and unprecedented attacks on the free press… render his presence at such an event a profound contradiction of its purpose,” the open letter reads.

U.S. President Donald Trump takes questions from reporters during a press briefing at the White House, on the one-year mark into his second term in office, in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 20, 2026.  (Jessica Koscielniak/Reuters)

“The collective weight of the administration’s actions — retaliatory access bans, coercive regulatory investigations, frivolous lawsuits against the press, defunding of public broadcasting, dismantling of international broadcasting, physical restrictions on journalists, personal verbal attacks on reporters, assaults on the media in official White House press releases and social media posts, the arrest of journalists, and the pardoning of those who committed violence against the press — represent the most systematic and comprehensive assault on freedom of the press by a sitting American president.”

TRUMP ACCEPTS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENTS’ ASSOCIATION DINNER INVITATION FOR THE FIRST TIME AS PRESIDENT

Notable signatories on the letter are former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, former ABC News White House correspondent Sam Donaldson, former NBC News anchor Ann Curry and PBS NewsHour correspondent Stephanie Sy.

A spokesperson for the White House simply pointed to Trump’s Truth Social post announcing he was attending the dinner when previously asked about the open letter. 

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Trump did attend the event as a private citizen in 2011 during the Obama administration. Then-President Barack Obama made a joke about Trump during that event saying: “Say what you will about Mr. Trump, he certainly would bring some change to the White House. Let’s see what we’ve got up there.”

President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media aboard Air Force One, March 15, 2026. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Obama then featured an image of the White House with a neon sign that said “Trump White House Hotel Casino Golf Course” with gold columns and a chandelier.

But during his second term, Trump has actually taken to remodeling the White House— with a new ballroom under construction and his addition of gold molding to the Oval Office.

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Fox News’ Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.