D.C. Press Breaks 140-Year Tradition in Snub to Trump
Many of the administration’s top officials had declined to attend the event, further bucking the norm.
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
The Beltway media thumbed its nose at President Donald Trump on Sunday.
In a subtle dig, reporters at the annual Gridiron Club dinner—which brings together prominent members of the Washington, D.C. press corps each year—broke with a 140-year-old tradition by declining to toast the sitting president. Instead, journalists raised their glasses in support of press freedom.
“A toast to the First Amendment,” said Gridiron President Judy Woodruff, a former anchor and managing editor of PBS NewsHour, according to the Washington Post.
The gesture of rebuke comes after White House officials themselves broke with tradition. Each year, the press toasts the president, and the president or vice president closes the event with a speech.
President Joe Biden departs the Grand Hyatt Hotel following the annual Gridiron Dinner in 2024.
REUTERS/Tom Brenner
Trump and Vice President JD Vance declined to attend, as did White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Communications Director Steven Cheung, and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.
“Nobody went because either we were busy working or we just don’t care to be recognized by that crowd,” a White House official told Politico after the dinner.
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Simmering tensions became even more visible at one point in the evening.
One of the night’s speakers, Democrat Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, joked about the Trump administration’s ties with Russia.
“If I actually wanted to be president, I wouldn’t do any of this,” he said. “Instead, I would take my case directly to the people who are in charge of our democracy, the Kremlin.”
In response to Moore’s jab, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll walked out in protest.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Organizers of the event further improvised to cap off the dinner.
“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," Woodruff told Politico. “These demonstrated the good humor and fellowship this dinner is all about.”
Trump did attend the Gridiron Club dinner in 2018, showering the journalists in attendance with praise—a sign of how much his relationship with the press has soured since.
“I don’t get to say it often, but you have some incredible, brilliant, powerful, smart and fair people in the press,” he said, thanking attendees for the work they do to “support and sustain our democracy.”
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