Trump Scraps 'Nasty' Remarks at Rescheduled WHCA Dinner
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- President Donald Trump addressed journalists at the rescheduled White House correspondents' dinner on July 24, 2026, telling the crowd "the show must go on" after an April shooting upended the original event and forced an evacuation.
- Weijia Jiang, president of the White House Correspondents' Association and a CBS News journalist, welcomed the crowd with "Let's try this again" and declared "We are back. We will not be intimidated. We refuse to let an act of violence have the final word."
- Trump scrapped the "rather nasty" remarks he had previewed on Truth Social, instead delivering a mixed speech that included calling the room "the largest group of 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' people put together at one time."
- The dinner moved to a Waldorf Astoria hotel ballroom holding about 700 guests, with tightened security including two ID checks, a detection dog, armed officers and a single entrance — and no red carpet or pre-dinner cocktail receptions.
- Trump sat through more than an hour of awards presentations honoring journalists who had covered his administration pointedly during the previous year.
- The rescheduled event added two new awards, including one for Victor Gonzales, the Secret Service agent staffing the April security checkpoint who was struck in his protective vest when the gunman approached.
Why it matters: Trump abandoned the combative speech he had previewed on Truth Social for months, opting for a self-deprecating joke about his critics instead — a tonal shift worth noting given his prior public threats of "rather nasty" remarks. The WHCA's decision to honor the wounded Secret Service agent turned the dinner itself into an institutional statement about press resilience under physical threat.
