Overview
- President Donald Trump delivered an hourlong speech at the rescheduled White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Friday, July 24, directing repeated jabs at individual journalists and news outlets while also congratulating some award winners.
- The dinner was a smaller, tightly screened event held at the Waldorf Astoria after the April shooting that halted the original gathering, and the WHCA honored Secret Service officer Victor Gonzales and hotel staff for their roles in that incident while the April suspect faces criminal charges.
- Trump singled out CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, dismissed some prize-winning reporting as 'fake,' teased a future run and put on a red 'Trump 2028' hat despite the Constitution limiting presidents to two elected terms.
- Audience reaction was often muted or awkward as many barbs landed unevenly, and news organizations including CNN issued public defenses of their reporters during or soon after the speech.
- A professional lipreader’s published interpretation of a private side exchange in which Trump purportedly called reporters liars is an unverified, single-source claim and remains developing while broader coverage has focused on the speech, the awards and security questions raised by the April attack.