The ongoing Cold War between Donald Trump and the free press hit a new low this weekend when the Trump administration decided to snub the Gridiron Club and they decided to go tit for tat and snub him back. It is a ritual with the venerable Gridiron Club to toast the sitting president of the United States as part of the evening’s festivities. That didn’t happen this year. Instead, a toast was made to the First Amendment. Trump’s administration made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with the Gridiron Club festivities, and this hostility will probably spill over into the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, which is scheduled for late April. This dinner used to be bipartisan but in this day and age it’s a war zone.
Here’s the backstory — as told to POLITICO by two people close to the planning — of how planning for the event in the days before led to an evening unlike anyone in the room could recall.
By Friday before the dinner, Gridiron President Judy Woodruff, the PBS journalist, announced to club members that the Trump administration would not have a speaker at the dinner, and the toast would be to the First Amendment instead.
Two sources told Playbook that President Donald Trump and VP JD Vance both declined invitations last month.
“Nobody went because either we were busy working or we just don’t care to be recognized by that crowd,” one White House official told Playbook this morning. A spokesperson for the VP did not immediately return a request for comment today.
The snubs were, in many ways, mutual. In addition to inviting Trump and Vance, the Gridiron Club also invited chief of staff Susie Wiles, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, communications director Steven Cheung and national security adviser Mike Waltz, among others.
The administration didn’t send a representative to speak for the first time in recent memory. It’s usually the president or the VP: During Trump’s first term, the duty fell to Mike Pence in 2017, Trump himself in 2018, senior adviser Ivanka Trump in 2019, and would’ve included national security adviser Robert O’Brien in 2020 before the dinner was canceled due to the pandemic.
Trump’s own remarks in 2018 are a time capsule of just how much the rift between him and the press has grown. Back then, he thanked the press “for all you do to support and sustain our democracy. I mean that. I mean that. Some incredible people in the press. Really, I don’t get to say it often. But you have some incredible, brilliant, powerful, smart and fair people in the press. And I want to thank you.”
Last night, that wasn’t the case. Traditionally dozens of White House advisers fill the room, but there were scant few in attendance. The dinner still featured a Cabinet secretary — HUD Secretary Scott Turner — and speakers and lawmakers from both parties, as well as skits skewering Democrats and Republicans, maintaining a long tradition on each of those fronts since 1885.
To substitute for an administration speaker, Woodruff went into the Gridiron archives to show a video featuring comments from the last four Republican presidents — including Trump speaking to the importance of a press in democracy.
It’s unclear why Turner’s presence at the event as a member of the administration wasn’t enough to toast. Woodruff didn’t immediately respond when asked.
“At most of the Gridiron Club’s Spring Dinners, the President of the United States has spoken. In some years, the Vice President has filled in, and on occasion a high-level Administration figure,” she told Playbook in a statement.
“I invited the President, the Vice President, the National Security Adviser, and the Interior Secretary — all declined. I was told the Secretary of State would not be available. To close the evening — when the sitting President usually speaks — we showed video and audio excerpts of the past four Republican presidents, starting with President Trump in 2018. These demonstrated the good humor and fellowship this dinner is all about.”
A spokesperson for Turner didn’t respond to a request for comment by publication time.
In her remarks, Woodruff thanked her predecessor, WaPo’s Dan Balz.
“Boy has this city changed. Last year, we were celebrating the accomplishments and leadership of Dan Balz,” she said. “Today, we’re trying to figure out just how our government came to be run by a 19-year-old who goes by ‘Big Balls,’” she said of the now-infamous Department of Government Efficiency staffer.
Washington used to be a serious town with serious people before the Trump circus descended. Again. And even Trump used to be more congenial, as the 2018 video demonstrated. Gone are those days. Now it’s all undisguised malice.
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