President Trump announced in a social media post on Monday that he would participate in this year’s black-tie dinner thrown by the White House Correspondents’ Association, which takes place on the last Saturday in April.
This was a surprising development for members of the Washington press corps, since as president, Mr. Trump has made a point of snubbing the dinner, a celebration of the First Amendment thrown by the same journalists he often derides as “enemies of the people.”
But this year, Mr. Trump said on Truth Social, was different.
“In honor of our Nation’s 250th birthday,” he wrote, and because “these ‘Correspondents’ now admit that I am truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of our Country, the G.O.A.T.,” he would make it his mission to transform the fusty dinner into “the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER!”
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, followed up in a post of her own, writing simply: “Will be fun!”
Mr. Trump skipped Washington’s prom, as the dinner is eye-rollingly referred to in the capital, all four years of his first term, and he stayed away last year, too. Before him, the last absentee president from the dinner was Ronald Reagan, in 1981, who was the victim of an assassination attempt weeks earlier.
The dinner occupies a mythic, if hoary, place in the annals of Trumpology. It has been said over the years that the public humiliation he endured at the 2011 event, which he attended as a reality television star, fueled a desire for revenge that culminated in a run for president.
That year, Mr. Trump was the butt of punchlines delivered by then-President Barack Obama and the talk show host Seth Meyers. Mr. Trump, seen stone-faced in the audience, did not seem to take it well.
The president appears to be edging back toward the black-tie, rubber-chicken evening circuit in Washington as his second term rolls along. In January, he hit the annual dinner for the Alfalfa Club, a tuxedoed gathering of top financiers and politicians, where he joked about being in a room with “people I hate.”
These sorts of affairs are often tricky for a president who has presented his political rise as a populist overthrow of entrenched elites. Now he will be a featured guest at an event intended to honor press freedom after a year in which he has sued news organizations for enormous sums, banned Associated Press reporters from some White House events and spearheaded intimidation tactics against the press.
All of which might make for rich material for a comedian. Except there won’t be one this year.
While the Correspondents’ Dinner is best-known for blistering stand-up sets from the likes of Stephen Colbert and Hasan Minhaj, this year’s edition is set to feature the celebrity mentalist Oz Pearlman.
“This is a rare opportunity to gather so many accomplished, perceptive people in one place and invite them to share moments of wonder, surprise and awe,” Mr. Pearlman said in a statement last week.
How Mr. Trump’s presence may affect that sense of wonder and surprise is an open question. During an appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Mr. Pearlman once correctly guessed Mr. Rogan’s A.T.M. code. Whether he can guess the president’s nuclear codes is another story.
The president of the Correspondents’ Association, Weijia Jiang of CBS News, said in a statement on Monday that “we’re happy the president has accepted our invitation and look forward to hosting him.”
