Trump Blasts 'Fake News' at Rescheduled WH Correspondents' Dinner — SkimNews
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- Donald Trump attended the rescheduled White House Correspondents' Association dinner at the Waldorf Astoria, three months after a shooting at the originally planned Washington Hilton venue forced the first event's cancellation.
- Trump used his hour-long speech to label the press 'fake news' and accuse attending journalists of 'Trump Derangement Syndrome,' while also calling on Americans to respect freedom of speech and settle differences 'not with bullets, but with open and vigorous debate.'
- Trump joked about running for a third term — then corrected to a fourth — donning a 'Trump 2028' hat despite the 22nd Amendment's two-term limit, which was ratified in 1951 after Franklin D. Roosevelt served four consecutive terms.
- The event was scaled to roughly 700 attendees from more than 2,000 in April, with tightened security including double screening, QR codes, IDs, wristbands, and visibly armed Secret Service officers along a single-file entry line.
- Trump presented awards to outlets he has sued or sparred with — the New York Times, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal — and honored Secret Service officer Victor Gonzalez, who was shot during the April incident.
- WHCA President Weijia Jiang announced the dinner would return to the Washington Hilton next year, declaring she would 'refuse to let an act of violence have the final word.'
- Suspect Cole Tomas Allen, 31, has been charged with attempting to assassinate the president after being tackled by agents near a staircase leading to the ballroom.
Why it matters: The dinner, traditionally a venue for presidents to laugh with the press they cover, turned pointed — with Trump's personal attacks on reporters seated meters away underscoring the strained White House-press relationship, which last week included his threat to revoke broadcast licenses from networks that skipped his primetime address. The scaled-down security and venue change show the April shooting's lasting operational and symbolic cost to a normally glitzy Washington ritual.
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