Donald Trump is heading back to the site of his public humiliation at the hands of Barack Obama.
In a chest-thumping announcement Monday, Trump said he will end his boycott of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and return to the stage where Obama once brutally roasted him.
Calling himself “the G.O.A.T.,” Trump wrote on Truth Social that the White House Correspondents’ Association had asked him “very nicely” to be the honored guest at the dinner.
It will mark the 79-year-old president’s first time at the annual event in either of his terms.
“In honor of our Nation’s 250th Birthday, and the fact that these ‘Correspondents’ now admit that I am truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of our Country, the G.O.A.T., according to many, it will be my Honor to accept their invitation, and work to make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER!” the relentlessly self-aggrandizing president wrote.
Insiders have long said that the drubbing Trump took from Obama at the dinner nearly 15 years ago helped crystallize his decision to run for president.
Obama, then president, mercilessly lampooned the then-Celebrity Apprentice star at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Calling him “the Donald,” Obama sarcastically praised the then-reality TV star’s “credentials and breadth of experience” and skewered Trump’s fixation on conspiracy theories about his birthplace.
“No one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth-certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter—like, did we fake the moon landing?” Obama quipped.
The cameras caught a stone-faced Trump, who offered only a weary smile as Obama’s jokes sent the crowd into roaring laughter.
Trump declined all of his invitations to the dinner since taking office in 2017, accusing the press of being unfair to him and calling journalists “the enemy of the American people.”
“Because the Press was extraordinarily bad to me, FAKE NEWS ALL, right from the beginning of my First Term, I boycotted the event, and never went as Honoree,” he wrote on Monday.
The thin-skinned president, who routinely insults reporters, added, “However, I look forward to being with everyone this year. Hopefully, it will be something very Special.”
In a statement, WHCA president Weijia Jiang said, “We’re happy the president has accepted our invitation and look forward to hosting him.” Jiang, a White House correspondent for CBS News, has clashed with Trump during press conferences in the past.
The dinner has long been a lighthearted Washington affair that celebrates press freedom with a tradition of roasting administration officials.
Last year, the WHCA disinvited the night’s featured comedian, Amber Ruffin, over comments she made on an episode of The Daily Beast Podcast.
Ruffin called Trump officials “kind of a bunch of murderers” on the Beast’s podcast and said that she wouldn’t try to make sure that her jokes targeted both sides of the political spectrum, as she had been instructed to do by the WHCA.
