Association reschedules White House Correspondents’ Dinner for July
June 2 (UPI) — Officials have rescheduled the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner for July 24, several weeks after a gunman disrupted the original event.
Weijia Jiang, president of the association and a senior White House correspondent for CBS, said Tuesday that the event will be a “more intimate gathering” with additional security precautions.
“When gunfire interrupted this year’s event, it further clarified the WHCA’s mission to advocate for the freedoms that are protected in the First Amendment,” Jiang wrote in an email to WHCA members. “We will not allow an act of violence to have the last word, especially during a year when we are reflecting on the 250th anniversary of America and everything we stand for.”
The original event April 25 ended when an armed man charged a security checkpoint outside the event at the Washington Hilton, and the president and other officials evacuated. The suspect, Cole Allen, 31, has been charged with attempting to assassinate the president, assaulting a federal law enforcement official with a deadly weapon and other offenses. Allen pleaded not guilty to all charges.
President Donald Trump posted on social media Tuesday that he will attend and speak at the dinner, which he called a ” ‘HOT’ ticket!”
Trump said the dinner will take place at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C., which is the former Trump International Hotel. In the email announcing the rescheduling, Jiang did not mention a site.
“This dinner will not only be an opportunity to carry out our program,” she wrote. “It will be a statement that violence has no place in American life and a free press will not be intimidated into silence. As you have all demonstrated, courage and community can and should rise above.”
The Washington Post reported after the prior event that some critics thought the president should not be so prominently featured.
“Why do I need to pay hundreds of dollars and dress up in a tuxedo to go listen to the president of the United States insult my colleagues?” Steven Herman, executive director of the University of Mississippi’s Jordan Center for Journalism Advocacy and Innovation, said in the Post. “I think he’s made it pretty clear he is not a champion of free speech or a free press. He only likes press or speech when it reflects positively on him.”
