We all know Donald Trump’s favorite style of dining is watching D.C. manservant Chris Christie eat meatloaf against his will, but one would think he’d make an exception for cherished national traditions, like the White House Correspondents’ dinner, the one night of the year the country celebrates its president’s reluctant sense of humor. No one really enjoys this, per se, but the president usually goes.
The crucial thing about this dinner is that it’s organized by journalists who cover the White House and they usually get some famous comedian—like Larry Wilmore, or Don Rickles—to roast the president and his administration. Given Trump’s rotten luck with performers and his obvious hatred of the press, this event also sounds like our president’s biggest nightmare (if he had a shred of imagination, or slept ever). Predictably, organizing this shindig has thus far been a shit show, and it felt inevitable (perhaps only to me) that, come April 29th, we’d all be ignoring Kellyanne Conway as she performed her 90s standup routine for a bunch of Mar-a-Lago club members.
But maybe now we can all stop pretending this dinner has to happen (although, for the time being, the White House Correspondents’ Association says the show will go on).
At the very least there’s now a chance this night could actually be fun. Except for Chris Christie.
Correction: a previous headline stated that Trump will be the first president not to attend the WHCD. He’s actually the first not to attend in three decades, according to NBC, and the headline has been revised to reflect this change. Jezebel regrets the error.