The Trump White House and a constellation of conservative groups are in talks to potentially organize an event to rival the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, according to Politico.
“Why be surrounded by people who don’t align with us or our voters?” one official asked the news outlet.
Among the alternative proposals the White House is said to be considering are a simultaneous dinner or a gathering that takes place on the same day of the April 26 event.
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This year’s WHCD falls on First Lady Melania Trump’s birthday, and Politico reported that administration aides are considering whether it could serve as a thematic tie-in.
The annual dinner, which is organized by the White House Correspondents’ Association of journalists who cover the president and their office, has been a D.C. tradition since the 1920s.
Except for Trump, every sitting president since Calvin Coolidge has attended at least one dinner.
During his first administration, the president made an annual habit of snubbing the dinner, calling it “so boring and so negative” in 2019.
Trump held a rally in Wisconsin that year instead. A White House official told Politico that any alternate event this year would be a “dinner-style” gathering, potentially featuring remarks by Trump, rather than a rally.
The dinner typically includes comedic addresses—including in-person or videotaped remarks by the sitting president—where politicians, journalists, and entertainers poke fun at each other.
In most years, a featured entertainer is invited to lampoon the gathered attendees—this year, writer and comic Amber Ruffin has been given the job.
Previous dinners have included comedic addresses by Larry Wilmore, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and the late Norm Macdonald.
Before he entered politics, Trump attended the dinner in 2011, at a time when he was hurling birther conspiracies at then-President Barack Obama and flirting with the idea of a run for office.
Obama, who addressed the event, took the opportunity to roast Trump, saying he would turn the White House into a casino if ever elected and sarcastically praising his “leadership” for “firing” Gary Busey on his reality TV show The Apprentice.
Comedian Seth Meyers, that year’s featured entertainer, also relished the opportunity to ridicule Trump to his face, skewering him with two-and-a-half minutes of jokes during his routine.
“Donald Trump has been saying he will run for president as a Republican—which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke,” Meyers said, as cameras cut to a stone-faced Trump.
Meyers recounted that Trump demanded an apology from him when they later met in 2015.
If the White House is not the lead on the alternative event this year, Politico reported that the right-wing advocacy group Turning Point is considering organizing a gathering of conservative influencers.
The idea of a rival event, however, has merely been discussed at this point and not but not finalized, one official told the outlet.
