President Donald Trump returned to the stage of a rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Friday night, where he delivered a rambling speech in which he praised some journalists, criticized others, made jokes about the weight and intellect of public figures and mocked a third presidential term.
But he assured the crowd of reporters that he had canceled out the cruder parts of his remarks.
“That was a roller-coaster,” Trump said of the speech he was prepared to give in April, before a gunman upended the original dinner and forced its postponement.
The president said at the beginning of his remarks: “As I said three months ago, the show must go on,” praising the decision to reschedule the dinner. He referred to the “attempted mass murder” that could have occurred that April night, but then moved largely to humor and insults.
Trump’s return to the Correspondents’ Dinner — and his promise to return next year as well — represents a landmark moment in his relationship with the media, which he has attacked, sued and taken administrative action against since taking office for his second term early last year. Among the audience were reporters who were subjected to sanctions and banned from attending the events.
Trump’s sometimes off-color speech, which lasted more than an hour, was filled with vague statements directed at individuals he didn’t like — from actress Jane Fonda to rock legend Bruce Springsteen to Barack Hussein Obama.
President Donald Trump attends the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel Washington, D.C., Friday, July 24, 2026, in Washington, with WHCA President Weijia Jiang, right, and White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt.
AP Photo/Rod Lamke Jr
Other targets of Trump’s apparent humor include: late-night talk show hosts Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel; Rep. Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota; California Governor Gavin Newsom; former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie; And Trump’s speechwriters, whose jokes he sometimes criticized even as they were being delivered. Some comments flirted with racism.
The president also spent time expressing his pride in the ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, formerly the Trump International Hotel. “It’s great to be back in a place I know so well because I built it,” Trump said.
Get breaking national news
Get Canada breaking news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you never miss a trending story.
Trump also pointed to the press awards handed out earlier in the evening, mostly for stories that challenge him and his administration. “Do I have a say in those awards?” He asked with a grimace.
He briefly mentioned the Iran war and made several remarks about the hall he is building in the White House. He also used the occasion to joke about the possibility of serving a third term, something prohibited by the Twenty-Second Amendment to the US Constitution.
“Just like my presidency, the second time is always better,” the president joked. “And the third time will be better.”
“I’m just kidding,” he added. Then, at the end, he donned a red “Trump 2028” hat and gave the “scoop” he was promoting again.
The dinner was completely different from the previous ones
Earlier, Trump entered the hall to polite applause and was thanked for his support by outgoing White House Correspondents’ Association President Weijia Jiang of CBS News. After dinner, he then sat down for more than an hour presenting the awards.
One of the winners, Tyler Pager of the New York Times, was actually one of the reporters who was subpoenaed by Trump’s Justice Department over his reporting on Air Force One that Trump gifted to Qatar. Those subpoenas were withdrawn Thursday in a New York courtroom — just one of the arenas in which the president, in his second term, is seeking to control media coverage that displeases him.
The rescheduled dinner was being held in a smaller venue this time, seating only about 700 people. Security was noticeably tighter. Guests enter through a single entrance, through two ID checks and past a detection dog, armed officers and security guards. There was no red carpet and no separate pre-dinner cocktail parties.
“Let’s try this again,” Jiang said sarcastically, greeting the crowd. She noted that the White House press corps “always has a follow-up.” She became serious, and again referred to the shock and confusion caused by the original dinner in April.
“Our message tonight is: We are back,” she said. “We will not be intimidated. We refuse to let acts of violence have the last word.”
Early in his speech, Trump indicated that he had decided to tone down his language. But he kept some zingers. Like this message to the heavily watched public: “This is truly the largest group of people suffering from ‘Trump Syndrome’ combined at any one time.”
People received awards for bravery during the April shooting
Besides the shortened approach, there was another change to Friday’s dinner: two additional prizes. One was presented to Victor Gonzalez, a Secret Service agent who was working a security checkpoint last April and was hit in his body armor.
Gonzalez “put himself directly in harm’s way and engaged the armed suspect,” Jiang said. “He stayed in the fight and the attacker was stopped.”
The second award was presented to staff at the Washington Hilton Hotel, location of the first dinner, who were applauded for their professionalism under pressure.
The dress code this time was a looser “black tie optional,” and dinner included grilled peach salad, burrata and lobster salad, and beef Wellington. The evening featured, as with The Last Supper, entertainment by mentalist Oz Perlman – who this time got a chance to do his thing.
Jiang and her fellow board members pulled out all the stops to make the second edition of the WHCA dinner happen, not wanting to let any violent action — or the image of colleagues hiding under tables — be the final thought. In announcing the rescheduling, she emphasized the dinner’s stated purpose: “to celebrate the free press and the vital role of the press in our democracy for more than a century.”
There is still a lot of criticism of this event
But it’s also clear that some people felt the dinner shouldn’t be rescheduled at all.
Many never thought it was a good look in the first place, seeing journalists dressed in formal clothing brings them closer to their sources, or the things they cover in their reporting.
“It undermines public confidence in how journalism does its work, and makes it seem like we are friends with the people we cover,” Kelly McBride, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, said during the proceedings.
The new dinner came at a time of rapidly increasing tension between the media and the president, who, in his second term, has tried to put pressure on the media with which he is dissatisfied in several ways. These pressures ranged from sanctions on members of the White House press corps to regulatory actions through the Federal Communications Commission to outright lawsuits. These tensions have escalated since April.
But Trump ended up trying to mend relations, to some extent. “I have great respect for your profession,” he told the assembled reporters after an hour of speaking. He also touted his success, saying, “When I’m not around, you’re all going broke.”
“I didn’t know what to expect. It’s a lot worse than I first thought,” he concluded of the evening.
