Amid growing tension with the media, President Donald Trump said Saturday that he will not attend this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.

The format for the event typically devolves into a roast between media members who closely cover the president and the highest elected official in the country.

“I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year,” Trump tweeted. “Please wish everyone well and have a great evening.”

I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2017 ">February 25, 2017

Trump has called the media the enemy of the people on multiple occasions since becoming president and said this week he intends to “do something about” the media. Earlier in the week, some members of certain media outlets including The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and CNN were not allowed to attend a press briefing with administration spokesman Sean Spicer. This came on the heels of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon saying attacks on the “corporatist globalist media” would continue.

Trump’s cancellation also comes as multiple media groups are scrubbing plans to host parties surrounding the event. Vanity Fair, Bloomberg and The New Yorker, which all typically host events attended by celebrities, politicians and media members, opted out this year, according to Deadline.

The White House Correspondents’ Association still plans to have the dinner April 29.

“The WHCA takes note of President Donald Trump’s announcement on Twitter that he does not plan to attend the dinner, which has been and will continue to be a celebration of the First Amendment and the important role played by an independent news media in a healthy republic,” Jeff Mason, association president, said in a statement.</s>"I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!" Trump tweeted on Saturday.

The black-tie dinner, which raises money for journalism scholarships, takes place every spring and is usually attended by the president, journalists, celebrities and Washington insiders.

Several news organizations had already withdrawn from the April 29 event in protest of Trump's treatment of the media.

Vanity Fair and Bloomberg, which usually co-host an exclusive, star-studded after-party, have canceled that gala, while The New Yorker similarly canceled its pre-party April 28.

Most other news organizations, including CNN, have yet to announce their official plans for the weekend. But some are said to be rethinking their attendance in the wake of the White House's decision to block CNN , The New York Times and other outlets from an off-camera White House press briefing on Friday. White House Correspondents Association President Jeff Mason told CNN's Brianna Keilar on Saturday that Trump's decision is not surprising given the negative things the President has said about the media, such as suggesting they are "the enemy of the American people." "That of course is something that the correspondents' association and journalists reject," Mason said. "The media is an incredibly important part of a vibrant republic, and we celebrate that at that dinner. "It's up to him to decide whether or not he wants to come," he said. "But the correspondents' association and the members who work in this room every day will continue to do our job and write the news and tell the truth about this administration, as we have done about every administration before."</s>Donald Trump on Saturday capped a week of tumultuous relations with the press by saying he will not attend this year’s White House correspondents’ dinner, which is scheduled for 29 April.

“I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year,” the president wrote on Twitter. “Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!”

The news came as relations between the Trump administration and the press have sunk to new lows. On Friday, leading news outlets including the New York Times, CNN and the Guardian were excluded from a briefing by press secretary Sean Spicer while friendlier conservative organisations were admitted.

Editors of excluded organisations expressed anger, although White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) president Jeff Mason attempted to calm troubled waters. Mason did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.

Trump has reacted angrily to a series of reports citing anonymous sources in the White House, law enforcement and intelligence agencies about chaos in his administration, alleged contacts between campaign staff and Russian agents, and White House attempts to rebut such reports.

The difficult relationship between Trump – whose senior adviser Steve Bannon, formerly chief of the rightwing website Breitbart News, has repeatedly called the press “the opposition party” – and the media has already contributed to a number of withdrawals from the correspondents’ dinner and related events.

This week Bloomberg followed Vanity Fair and the New Yorker in saying it would not host a party tied to the dinner. The New York Times has not attended the event since 2008; the Guardian will not attend this year. This week, Buzzfeed reported that another favourite target of Trump’s, CNN, was considering pulling out as well.

Trump followed a familiar path on Friday night, when he wrote on Twitter: “FAKE NEWS media knowingly doesn’t tell the truth. A great danger to our country. The failing @nytimes has become a joke. Likewise @CNN. Sad!”

Many observers have linked Trump’s run for the presidency with events at the 2011 correspondents’ dinner, in which Barack Obama ridiculed the businessman, who was in attendance, over his championing of the so-called “birther” movement.

The dinner is a traditionally lighthearted affair, celebrities mixing with journalists at tables and comedians “roasting” the president of the day, as Stephen Colbert did to George W Bush in an infamous speech from 2006. The president traditionally speaks as well.

The first dinner was held in 1921 and Calvin Coolidge was the first president to attend, in 1924. Since then every president has attended the dinner at least once.

Ronald Reagan did not attend in 1981 – after being shot – and Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon did not always sit down for dinner. Obama attended all eight events while he was in office.

According to the History Channel the dinner has been cancelled three times: following the death of former president William Howard Taft, in 1930, after the US entry into the second world war in 1942, and in 1951, during the Korean war.

In January, Trump skipped the Alfalfa Club dinner, another key event in the social calendar of a city to which the president is happy to pose as an outsider.

In a statement issued on Saturday, Guardian US editor Lee Glendinning said the exclusion of news outlets from Friday’s briefing was “deeply troubling and divisive” and added: “Holding power to account is an essential part of the democratic process, and that’s exactly what the Guardian will continue to do.”</s>WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump says he won't be attending the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner this spring.

In a tweet on Saturday, the president doesn't give a reason but says he wishes "everyone well and have a great evening!"

The annual fundraiser for college scholarships mixes politicians, journalists and celebrities.

Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with news media. In recent weeks, he has accused some news outlets of publishing "fake news."

Trump has also slammed reporters for using anonymous sources. His frustration includes reports describing contacts between his campaign advisers and Russian intelligence agents, which the White House has disputed. Yet members of his staff regularly demand anonymity when talking to reporters.

The White House Correspondents' Dinner released the following response on Twitter:

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Trump Will Be First President In 36 Years To Skip White House Correspondents Dinner

President Trump announced Saturday afternoon that he would break from a decades-old tradition and skip the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner scheduled for April 29.

"I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!" Trump tweeted.

The annual dinner, sometimes referred to — affectionately and derisively — in Washington as "Nerd Prom," honors journalism with awards and scholarships. The president is a major a draw to help in those efforts. What began in 1921 as a simple awards dinner evolved into a highly glamorized affair that attracted Hollywood stars.

The last president to not attend the dinner was Ronald Reagan in 1981. But he had a pretty good reason — he was recovering from being shot in an assassination attempt. Reagan did phone into the event and even joked about the shooting. "If I could give you just one little bit of advice," Reagan said from Camp David, the presidential retreat, "when somebody tells you to get in a car quick, do it."

He signed off with a light ribbing of the news media. "Well, I'm looking forward to the next news conference," he said. "I have so many questions to ask you all."

The last president to outright skip the event was Richard Nixon in 1972. Nixon warned the press he'd do so and followed through. Trump called the press the "enemy of the American people," in a tweet recently. That echoes Nixon, who told the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "The press is your enemy."

Trump's announcement comes at a moment of high tension between the White House and many news organizations. Trump has made attacking mainstream news organizations a staple of his public remarks. Trump and his White House have accused the New York Times, CNN and others of being an "opposition party" with which he is at war.

In response to Trump's tweet, the White House Correspondents' Association President Jeff Mason issued the following statement:

White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon on Thursday reiterated that the press was the "opposition party" at the Conservative Political Action Conference; Trump himself devoted a significant portion of his CPAC speech Friday to attacking the "fake news" media; and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer gave access for a briefing to a group of mostly conservative-leaning news organizations that same day while shutting out some mainstream organizations.

The correspondents' dinner has been a place where the inevitable tension between the president and press is mostly put aside after a roasting. The president usually takes on the press corps in a light-hearted way before acknowledging its important role in a democracy — and the president in turn takes a ribbing from a famous comedian who headlines the night.

But in recent weeks, as relations between the White House and the news media has grown more strained, several news organizations have announced plans to not attend this year's dinner. Buzzfeed reported that CNN, which Trump has been pointedly attacking, might boycott, and Bloomberg canceled hosting a planned after party, a longtime feature of the event in collaboration with Vanity Fair. Vanity Fair had pulled out earlier.

NPR and most other news organizations are still planning to attend.

Some news outlets, like The New York Times, have been skipping the event for years because, in part, of charges of the event depicting journalists as being too chummy with the president.

CBS's Major Garrett, the network's chief White House correspondent and a former board member of the correspondents' association, penned an op-ed in the Washington Post, in which he said he thought it was a bad idea for the press to skip the event. He concluded:

According to WHCA website, the dinner has been held every year since 1921.

There have been plenty of controversies surrounding presidents, yet they still attended, from the Iran-Contra weapons scandal in the 1980s during the Reagan administration to the Clinton impeachment. Bill Clinton attended all eight years, including before and after his 1998 impeachment following the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

The first president to attend was Calvin Coolidge in 1924. For years, the dinner had been headlined by cabaret singers and entertainers. The comedic roast didn't become a staple until 1983, but it has grown in popularity since, drawing together the odd couple of celebrities and the political news media.</s>Alec Baldwin had made a killing recently with his spot-on impression of Donald Trump, and now the Saturday Night Live regular could be taking the impersonation to a bigger stage — the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

On Saturday evening, the president made the surprise announcement that he would not be attending the annual event put on by the White House Correspondents’ Association, which is an opportunity for comedians to poke fun at the president. Trump did not give a reason for turning down the dinner — the first president not to attend since Ronald Reagan in 1981, when he was recovering from an assassination attempt — but many commenters believed the president’s notoriously thin-skinned nature had him afraid of facing down live criticism.

But some fans have a great idea — having Alec Baldwin fill in as Trump instead. Within minutes of the president’s announcement, many people flooded to Twitter calling on Baldwin to take his place.

Actor and director Zach Braff was one of the first to raise the idea.

Many others joined in, calling on Alec Baldwin to take his biting impression to the dinner in Trump’s place.

Even CNN host Brian Stelter said he was getting requests to push Alec Baldwin into the role.

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is often a no-holds-barred event, when comedians get a chance to poke fun at presidents right to their face. One of the most famous was Stephen Colbert’s biting criticism of George W. Bush at the 2006 dinner, when the future late night host took aim at Bush’s tendency to bend the truth.

And even before he became president, Donald Trump has been a target at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. In 2011, shortly after the peak of the Trump-led birther movement that ultimately led Barack Obama to release his full birth certificate, Obama railed into the real estate mogul for his leading the charge on the conspiracy theory that Obama had been born in Kenya.

That would likely be the same track if Alec Baldwin were to fill in for the president at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Baldwin’s impression has been particularly biting, with his Saturday Night Live appearances attacking Trump for his allegations of sexual assault, his potential scandal with Russia, and his general difficulty in forming coherent answers to the press.

It’s not clear if the event’s organizers are seriously considering Baldwin to fill in for the president. Doing so would likely be a shot across the bow for Trump, who has declared something of a war on the press. The president has repeatedly referred to news outlets that he does not like as “fake news” and this week said that some outlets are actually the enemy of the American people, Politico noted

“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” he tweeted.

The dig didn’t go over too well with members of the press, who hit back at Trump.

So far, Alec Baldwin has not responded to the requests that he fill in for Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.</s>President Donald Trump has announced that he will not attend this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a move that comes amid increasingly hostile relations between the media and the White House.

“I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!” Trump tweeted on Saturday.

The black-tie dinner, which raises money for journalism scholarships, takes place every spring and is usually attended by the president, journalists, celebrities and Washington insiders.

Several news organizations had already withdrawn from the April 29 event in protest of Trump’s treatment of the media.

Vanity Fair and Bloomberg, which usually co-host an exclusive, star-studded after-party, have canceled that gala, while The New Yorker similarly canceled its pre-party April 28.

Most other news organizations, including CNN, have yet to announce their official plans for the weekend. But some are said to be rethinking their attendance in the wake of the White House’s decision to block CNN, The New York Times and other outlets from an off-camera White House press briefing on Friday.

White House Correspondents Association President Jeff Mason told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Saturday that Trump’s decision is not surprising given the negative things the President has said about the media, such as suggesting they are “the enemy of the American people.”

“That of course is something that the correspondents’ association and journalists reject,” Mason said. “The media is an incredibly important part of a vibrant republic, and we celebrate that at that dinner.

“It’s up to him to decide whether or not he wants to come,” he said. “But the correspondents’ association and the members who work in this room every day will continue to do our job and write the news and tell the truth about this administration, as we have done about every administration before.”</s>President Donald Trump shockingly announced on Feb. 25 that he will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, amid growing tensions between his administration and the press. Several media outlets will also not be attending.

Donald Trump, 70, officially confirmed he will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on April 29. The president took to Twitter with his announcement on Feb. 25, amid the drama between his administration and the press. He wrote, “I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!” This comes shortly after CNN, The New York Times, Politico and several other media organizations were blocked from attending a White House press briefing.

Trump will be the first President of the United States NOT to attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in thirty years. The business outlet Bloomberg reportedly canceled their annual party in celebration of the dinner. The company usually co-hosts the event with Vanity Fair, but the popular magazine also reportedly decided to opt out earlier this month.

The New Yorker and the casts of House of Cards, Veep and Scandal will also not be making an appearance, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Proceeds raised by the dinner go toward scholarships and aspiring journalist awards. Meanwhile, Samantha Bee is also planning a “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner” on April 29, in protest of the Trump administration.

Click Here For More Photos Of The President & First Lady!

On Feb. 25, Trump also urged voters to hold their own “Make America Great Again” rally, which he claimed would “be the biggest of them all!” He even took to Twitter almost an hour later to continue his thought. “The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in [Barack] Obama first mo.,” he wrote, before sharing another tweet that read, “Great optimism for future of U.S. business, AND JOBS, with the DOW having an 11th straight record close. Big tax & regulation cuts coming!”

HollywoodLifers, do you think he’ll decide to go in the last-minute? Let us know!</s>Donald Trump doesn't have time to dine with the "fake news" media.

The U.S. president says he won’t be attending the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on April 29.

In a tweet on Saturday, the president doesn’t give a reason but says he wishes “everyone well and have a great evening!”

The annual fundraiser for college scholarships mixes politicians, journalists and celebrities. It also serves as a roast for the current administration, where the president often performs a self-depricating stand-up routine or video skit.

Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with news media. He has accused some news outlets of publishing “fake news" and slammed reporters for using anonymous sources.

His frustration includes reports describing contacts between his campaign advisers and Russian intelligence agents, which the White House has disputed. Yet members of his staff regularly demand anonymity when talking to reporters.

Fifteen presidents have attended the dinner over the years, starting with Calvin Coolidge in 1924.</s>(CNN) — President Donald Trump has announced that he will not attend this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a move that comes amid increasingly hostile relations between the media and the White House.

“I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!” Trump tweeted on Saturday.

The black-tie dinner, which raises money for journalism scholarships, takes place every spring and is usually attended by the president, journalists, celebrities and Washington insiders.

Several news organizations had already withdrawn from the April 29 event in protest of Trump’s treatment of the media.

Vanity Fair and Bloomberg, which usually co-host an exclusive, star-studded after-party, have canceled that gala, while The New Yorker similarly canceled its pre-party April 28.

Most other news organizations, including CNN, have yet to announce their official plans for the weekend. But some are said to be rethinking their attendance in the wake of the White House’s decision to block CNN, The New York Times and other outlets from an off-camera White House press briefing on Friday.

White House Correspondents Association President Jeff Mason told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on Saturday that Trump’s decision is not surprising given the negative things the President has said about the media, such as suggesting they are “the enemy of the American people.”

“That of course is something that the correspondents’ association and journalists reject,” Mason said. “The media is an incredibly important part of a vibrant republic, and we celebrate that at that dinner.

“It’s up to him to decide whether or not he wants to come,” he said. “But the correspondents’ association and the members who work in this room every day will continue to do our job and write the news and tell the truth about this administration, as we have done about every administration before.”
Donald Trump announces he will not attend the 2017 White House Correspondents' Dinner, following recent friction between his administration and various news organizations.