Besides Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and maybe Breitbart editor Matthew Boyle, Donald Trump already despises the press.
So why would he attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, an annual week-long suck up fest among the White House, Hollywood, lawmakers and reporters that is supposed to honor the White House Press Corps?
Well, he wouldn’t. At least this year he’s not, according to an interview with The Hill‘s Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack.
Should he become president that could all change.
In his interview with Cusack, Trump reiterates his belief that the press is dishonest and cites what he claims was a major misrepresentation of how he felt in 2011. While President Obama made a bunch of nasty jokes about him, Trump sat there in the Washington Hilton ballroom with what appeared to be a grim, stoic expression on his face.
But way deep inside himself he was really having a good time.
“For four years, I’ve read what a miserable time I had,” he told The Hill.
So fuck it. This year he’s not going.
Still, let Trump be Trump. He can’t help but brag about all the invitations he received.
“I was asked by every single group of media available to mankind [to attend this year],” he said. “But I’ve decided not to go.”
New York Times Magazine’s Chief National Correspondent Mark Leibovich, author of This Town, says Trump not attending really is not a big deal as far as his campaign is concerned.
“I don’t think it matters in the least, to be honest — at least as far as his campaign goes,” Leibovich told The Mirror. “I guess it might have been amusing to watch, but nothing beyond that.”
On the other hand, a White House reporter, who preferred to remain anonymous, really can’t understand why Trump wouldn’t go.
“The WHCD is an embarrassment to journalism,” the reporter wrote by email. “It reeks of preening vanity, hypocrisy, corruption and bad taste. It features women who’ve known better days in dresses they should never have even tried on should and paunchy men in ill-fitting tuxedos who think they’re God’s gift. So I don’t understand why Trump and his awful family aren’t going – they’d fit right in.”
SiriusXM’s “Press Pool” host Julie Mason remarked, “He didn’t really seem to enjoy himself in previous years. I think we’ll be OK without him.”
Memo to Trump and his family: There’s always time to change your mind.