The rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner is taking place Friday, nearly three months after the original event was cut short by a gunman who prosecutors say was trying to assassinate President Donald Trump.
The correspondents’ association announced in June that it would redo the annual press gala in a more intimate gathering with “significantly enhanced safety measures and new access procedures.” The event is taking place at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Trump is expected to attend and deliver remarks at Friday’s association dinner.
He said last month he hadn’t decided whether to give his originally intended speech, in which he was widely expected to attack the press. “I don’t know whether or not I will give the same rather nasty statements, at least as it concerns certain people, but we will soon find out,” he wrote. “In any event, it will be a ‘HOT’ ticket!”
Here’s what to know:
When is the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner?
The dinner is set to begin at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on Friday, July 24. A live stream of the event and red carpet will begin at 6 p.m. ET.
Who is attending?
The guest list for Friday’s event is scaled down from the original due to costs and space constraints. The Waldorf Astoria has a much smaller ballroom than the Hilton — where the dinner has been held every year since 1972 — and the dinner will only host about 680 people, rather than the 2,600 guests invited to the April event, NBC News reported.
Mentalist Oz Pearlman will be the evening’s featured entertainer.
President Trump was invited to return and speak at the dinner by Weijia Jiang, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. Trump hailed the decision to stage a rearranged dinner “a sign of strength and fortitude.” First lady Melania Trump does not plan on attending the dinner, a White House official told NBC News without providing a reason for the decision.
What to expect at the gala
The organization plans to present special awards to those who helped during the attempted shooting. Secret Service Police Officer Victor Gonzales, who confronted the gunman as he attempted to charge into the ballroom, and the staff of the Washington Hilton will receive the association’s “President’s Award for Exceptional Service to the WHCA.”
“Gonzales heroically engaged the armed suspect, placing himself directly in harm’s way,” said the Secret Service said in a statement after the shooting. “During the confrontation, Gonzales was struck in his protective vest and continued responding to the threat. His swift and decisive actions assisted in deterring the gunman from proceeding any further.”
The association said it will finish the program that was interrupted in April, including a “salute to the First Amendment in 250 years of American history, awards honoring groundbreaking reporting now, a salute to scholarship winners.”
Journalists want WHCA to stand up ‘forcefully’ to Trump
Hundreds of former or retired journalists and eight press freedom groups are asking the White House Correspondents’ Association to stand up to the Trump administration’s recent attacks on the media at its rescheduled dinner.
The letter expands on a similar one issued in April, before the first dinner. It notes that since then, “the administration’s attacks on journalists and press freedom have become even more egregious.”
The letter, organized by former ABC News correspondent Lisa Stark and producer Ian Cameron, cites in particular the recent subpoenas by the Justice Department to New York Times journalists who reported on security concerns over the president’s Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet. Additional subpoenas of the journalists’ phone records have included even the mother of one reporter, and two spouses.
The letter also cites threats by Trump to revoke licenses of broadcasters “who refuse to acquiesce to his demands.”
“Our message to the White House Correspondents’ Association is now more urgent: forcefully stand up for freedom of the press in front of the President, publicly defend the journalists he attacks, and vow to resist his administration’s concerted effort to undermine the First Amendment,” the letter says.
It notes that the association’s president has defined the dinner’s purpose as being “to celebrate the First Amendment and the hard daily work of the journalists who defend it.”
“We believe it is hypocritical to celebrate the First Amendment in front of the man who relentlessly attacks it,” the letter says. “We urge the WHCA to condemn the administration’s actions from the podium and pledge to fight all attempts by his administration to undermine this core pillar of a functioning democracy.”
The groups signing on to the letter are the Society of Professional Journalists, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the National Association of Black Journalists, the National Press Photographers Association, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, the Coalition for Women in Journalism, the Radio Television Digital News Association and the Media and Democracy Project.
There are also about 520 individual signatories, mainly retired journalists. Almost all of them signed the April letter as well.
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