President Donald Trump will appear at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner after a decade-long boycott but may have to see newspaper he attempted to sue win prize for Jeffrey Epstein reporting
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PresidentDonald Trumpcould face fresh embarrassment at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner later this month, as he will be in attendance to seeThe Wall Street Journalpick up a prestigious award for a story concerning him.
Trump has not accepted an invitation to the annual press gala in Washington, D.C., since 2015, after suffering a particularly brutal roast by Barack Obama at the 2011 event, which is said to have motivated his run for the presidency.
However, he unexpectedly announced on Truth Social in March thathe will be there this yearon April 25, breaking his long-standing boycott, having decided that members of the press corps “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!” he added.
But the occasion is already threatening to get awkward, after the White House Correspondents’ Association announced Monday that theWSJwill receive its Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountabilityfor its July 2025 story about Trump allegedly sending a “bawdy” birthday card doodle toJeffrey Epstein.
The announcement came on the same day that a federal judgedismissed the president’s $10 billion defamation lawsuitagainst the newspaper over that exact story, which he brought after repeatedly denying authorship of the drawing and insisting it did not exist.
Despite Trump’s protestations, theHouse Oversight Committeesubsequently acquired a copy of a sketch closely matching theWSJ’s description of the item from the Epstein estate.
“May every day be another wonderful secret,” read the card, bearing what appeared to be Trump’s signature beneath an outline of a naked woman’s torso, which appeared in a celebratory album compiled byGhislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice and former girlfriend, to mark his 50th birthday.
Florida District Judge Darrin P Gayles ruled Monday that the president had not only failed to prove theWSJhad acted with “actual malice” in publishing its story, but he had also come “nowhere close to this standard… Quite the opposite.”
The president has never been formally accused of wrongdoing in relation to the disgraced billionaire, who died in August 2019, but has faced repeated questions about their past friendship and was mentioned numerous times in the Epstein files released by the Department of Justice, although that should not be interpreted as evidence of guilt.
