Trump attends rescheduled White House correspondents dinner after shooting scare

Donald Trump attended the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, D.C., and used the roomful of reporters to take swipes at the press. The evening was meant to celebrate press freedom, but it also exposed how combative the White House relationship with major news organizations had become.

The dinner had originally been set for Saturday, April 26, 2025, after the White House Correspondents’ Association announced on February 4 that comedian Amber Ruffin would be the featured entertainer. By late March, the association dropped Ruffin and said the 2025 dinner would not feature any comedic performances at all. The first gathering was then cancelled after a shooting in April, and the event was later rescheduled about three months after the attack.

At the dinner, Trump sat among reporters from outlets he has frequently sparred with, including The New York Times, CNN and The Wall Street Journal. Awards were presented to journalists from those outlets as the White House press corps marked the return of an event that had been cut short by violence.

WHCA president Eugene Daniels said journalists would not let violence have the final word. The association had also made clear in its public statements that the White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalize working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors’ decisions.

The night’s uneasy tone reflected the tension that has long defined Trump’s dealings with the press. Instead of a straightforward celebration of access and scrutiny, the rescheduled dinner became a public demonstration of that strain, with Trump joking at journalists’ expense even as the association tried to frame the evening around resilience after the shooting scare.