President Donald Trump delivered remarks for about an hour at the dinner party David Ellison hosted in Washington, D.C., on Thursday evening “honoring” Trump — and intended to celebrate the First Amendment, sources told Variety.
Ellison organized the event in Trump’s honor (as well as to recognize CBS News’ White House reporters) as his Paramount Skydance is looking to win regulatory approval from the Trump administration’s Justice Department for the $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. On Wednesday, WBD shareholders overwhelmingly approved the company’s sale to Paramount.
In addition to Trump and senior members of his administration, those in attendance included Bari Weiss, editor in chief of CBS News; former “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell; Tom Cibrowski, CBS News president; Jan Crawford, the network’s chief legal correspondent; chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes; and Weijia Jiang, a White House correspondent at CBS News who is president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. Sources confirmed these attendees, which were first reported by the New York Times.
The event was themed to celebrate “250 Years of the First Amendment” but the topic of free speech didn’t really come up during Trump’s remarks or otherwise, sources told Variety. (In fact, the First Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights were adopted on Dec. 15, 1791 — less than 235 years ago.)
The irony is that Trump has faced criticism for undermining freedom of the press, including with a string of lawsuits he’s filed against news organizations. That includes one against CBS News over edits to a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris that the previous ownership of Paramount settled with a $16 million payout to Trump prior to the Skydance merger.
Weiss “joined Ellison at Mr. Trump’s table,” alongside her wife, Nellie Bowles, per the Times report. Also seated at the table were First Lady Melania Trump and Paramount chief legal officer Makan Delrahim (who was a DOJ antitrust official during Trump’s first term).
Ellison’s dinner guests included Todd Blanche, who assumed the role of acting U.S. attorney general after Trump fired Pam Bondi earlier this month. As noted by the Times, “Mr. Blanche oversees the Justice Department, whose antitrust division is set to review the Warner Bros. acquisition.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff, also attended the function, according to the report.
What Trump said during his one-hour speech was not detailed in the Times report. Sources told Variety the president spoke on various topics, including what he thought was the inferior quality of Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — which he said he has fixed.
Two sources described the evening to Variety as subdued. Dinner was served late because Trump’s remarks ran long.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) had this to say about Ellison’s event celebrating Trump: “Ellison and the information oligarchs should enjoy it while they can because when Democrats win power we are going to break these anti-consumer, anti-free speech media conglomerates into pieces,” he posted on X.
CBS News staff members “described consternation within the CBS newsroom over the event’s potential to create a perception of coziness between the news division and the Trump administration,” according to the Times article.
A Paramount Skydance spokeswoman declined to comment. The White House and CBS News did not respond to requests for comment Friday.
The event was held two days before the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday, April 25 — where Trump is also expected to be attendance. The Ellison-hosted dinner on April 23, which started with cocktails at 6:15 p.m., took place at the United States Institute of Peace. In December, the State Department announced that it was being renamed “The Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.”
After Paramount Skydance beat out Netflix to buy Warner Bros., staffers at CNN privately expressed fears that the Trump-friendly ownership of Paramount will steer CNN’s coverage toward a more conservative ideological bent. Weiss, whose digital news outlet The Free Press was acquired by Paramount last fall, has caused disruption within the ranks of CBS News since she took over the division. For his part, Ellison has pledged that CNN’s “editorial independence will absolutely be maintained” under a merged Paramount-WBD.
