This time, at least, everyone got to finish their dinner.
And any urge to hide under the table was driven not by the barking commands of Secret Service agents on alert against a marauding gunman, but by a desire to escape the tedium of a meandering speech from Donald Trump that strayed quickly and wildly from the matter at hand into the weeds of his normal stump addresses.
For more than two hours at Friday’s rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, Trump was forced to play the good sport; smiling and applauding while awards were bestowed on journalistic foes he berates daily as purveyors of “fake news” and plaudits heaped on past presidents he loathes.
But eventually something had to give. Trump had to be Trump, insults had to be hurled, some of them stale and familiar, a few of them funny, all of them grievously petty.
As often happens with his stump speeches these days, the president lost his audience. Phones were gazed at, silence ensued. Never more so than when he embarked on a tiresome bigoted diatribe against the Democratic representative from Minnesota, Ilhan Omar, one of his frequent targets.
Trump was finally getting to deliver his maiden speech as president to the association’s annual marquee gathering that a alleged would-be assassin had denied him by trying to storm the original event in April, before being foiled by Secret Service agents.
Both the association and Trump had decreed such an act of political violence could not be accepted as the final word. So a rescheduled dinner was arranged – but with significant adjustments.
Instead of the vast auditorium at the Washington Hilton – the dinner’s venue for several decades and once the site of an attempt on the life of Ronald Reagan – the Astoria Waldorf was chosen to stage a drastically scaled-down dinner, with just 700 guests attending, compared with the 2,600 who were at the original event in April.
Given the upheaval that unfolded then, the greater visibility of armed security personnel – even for a much smaller guest list – was unsurprising.
Weijia Jiang, the outgoing WHCA president, vowed in advance that the restaged dinner would be “more intimate”.
Trump, when he spoke – after being forcibly humbled by the dishing out of awards to a succession of journalists for their unflattering portrayal of his presidency – quickly established that humility would not feature strongly in his speech.
His first comment on the changed venue was to observe that he had once owned it, when it was the Trump International Hotel.
“This has not been an easy evening. All these awards. Do I have a say?” he asked. “But it’s great to be back at a place that I know very well because I built it, and I’m very proud of it because I built it for $2.9bn less than the Federal Reserve Building, which is a lot smaller, by the way.”
To his credit, he quickly entered the intended spirit by invokingthe episode that had caused everyone to be there in th efirst place.
“Tonight we come back together to answer that heinous attack with unwavering resolve, and every oneof us here this eveningto showthat in Americawe do not yieldtopolitical violence,”Trump saidto applause.“Sointhiscountry, we believe infreedomofspeech. Wesettleour differencesnotwithbullets, butwithopenandvigorousdebate.”Itseemedanaptresponseto Jiang ’ sappeal, basedontheevent ’ s themeof“celebratingthefirstamendment”, torespectandhonorthemedia’splacein Americanlife.“Manyfounders[ofthe US constitution]couldn’tstandthepress…buttheyunderstoodouraccessisrestricted,”shesaid.“Ifthemedia facesgovernmentpressureorcensorship, it’sthepeoplewhoendupknowingless. Thereisa difference , though , an existentialdifference betweencriticizingthepressandtryingtoundermineit.”Butthatwasashigh-mindedandworthyas Trumpwaswillingtoallow.< skip past newsletter promotion Free newsletter | Every weekday
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afternewsletterpromotion<Fromthere, itwasontotheinsults , taunts, jokes-andgrievances. Someofitwasamusingand drewlaughter , notablywhenhejestedattheexpenseofthehealthsecretary , Robert FKennedy Jr.<“Ihopethateveryonefinallygottodenjoytheirentire , verydeliciousbeeftenderloins , veryspecialbeef,”hesaid.“And Iwanteveryoneto knowthat Bobby Kennedy, w ho’ s righthere , personallyranoverthecowandhecutitup, andhebroughtithereforyoutoeattonight. Bobbyalsosuggestedappetizerfeaturinghisfavoritecutofmaleraccoonroadkill, butwedrewthelineatthat.”<Adam Schiff, the Democratsenatorfor Californiaandaparticular Trumpbete noire, wasmockedas“watermelonheadbecausehehasagreatbighead I’veeverseenwiththesmallest pencilneck”.<Jimmy Kimmel, J immy Fallonand Stephen Colbert, a llcomedianswhohave mocked Trumpunceasingly, w erederidedas“peoplewithouttalent”.
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Trumpsaidthespeechwasmuchmoregenerousthanonehadhplannedtogivein Aprilbeforethegunmanandwould-beallegedassassin, Cole Tomas Allen, s t olehisthunder.
Butwhatcouldhavebeengoin g throughhismindas Wolf Blitzer, theveteran CNNanchorwhofamouslywitnessedth eshooting scenesattheoriginaldin ner, a nnouncedthat Katharine Grahamawardforcouragea ndaccountabilitywasgoingtoa Wall Street Journalteamwhohadreportedonthep resident’spastrelationshipwith Jeffrey Epstein.
Intheeve nt, T rump shookhandswiththeteam ’ smembers, includin gonejournalistwhosehomeaddresshadbeendisclosedina$20bnsuithef il edagainstthepaperforcingthereporter’sfamilytohave tomovehome.
“Ihopeyouallknowthat Ibelieveinthefreepressmorethananyoneinthi sroom,”Trumptoldthegatheringlater, o verlookingthefactthathisadministrationhadfiledsu bpoenasforseveral New York Timesreportersa ndtheirrelativesafterthereporthadreportedonse curitybreachesonthenew Air Force Onejet, giftedby Qatar.
“Youpeoplehavenoideahowluckyyouare. When I’mgone, you’reallgoingtobebroke. There’snotgoingtobeanybodytoreporton.”
Ashewoundup, t hesoundsystemblaredout YMCAbythe Village People. Bythen, T rump h adbeentalkingfor65minutes, p aeansofpraisetothefoundingfathersanjournalisticbraveryhadbeenforgotten-andthereseemedlittle doubt aboutwhoseeventitreallywas.Source link
