Trump expected to appear at White House press gala for first time as president

Politics Trump expected to make his first appearance as president at White House Correspondents' Association dinner April 25, 2026 / 3:17 PM EDT / AP Add CBS News on Google Donald Trump's expected attendance at Saturday's annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington for his first time as president will put his administration's often-contentious relationship with the press on full public display. Mr. Trump will be watched closely at the event held by the organization of reporters who cover him and his administration. Past presidents who have attended have generally spoken about the importance of free speech and the First Amendment, adding in some light roasts about individual journalists. The Republican president did not attend during his first term or the first year of his second. He came as a guest in 2011, sitting in the audience as President Barack Obama, a Democrat, made some jokes about the New York real estate developer. Mr. Trump also attended as a private citizen in 2015. Past dinners have also featured comedians who poke at presidents. This year, the group opted to hire mentalist Oz Pearlman as the featured entertainment. Mr. Trump's planned appearance is rekindling a longer running debate about the dinner and events like it — in particular, whether it is poor form for journalists to be seen socializing with the people they cover. The New York Times, for example, stopped attending the dinner more than a decade ago for that reason. "What was once (a fairly long time ago) a well-intended night of fundraising and camaraderie among professional adversaries is now simply a bad look," wrote Kelly McBride, ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank. A contentious relationship Between berating individual reporters, fighting organizations like the Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press in court and restricting press access to the Pentagon, the administration's animus toward journalists has been a fix...