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Trump survived the dinner — the free press may not survive his attacks

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by Kim Wehle, opinion contributor - 04/29/26 9:30 AM ET

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by Kim Wehle, opinion contributor - 04/29/26 9:30 AM ET

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AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

Saturday night’s harrowing incident at the White House correspondents’ dinner has prompted predictable coverage of the newsy basics: the shooter’s identity, his possible motives, the Secret Service’s evacuation of the Trumps, JD Vance, and other officials.

The coverage also included President Trump’s subsequent remarks, including his telling reporters, “I’m not a basket case. I really take it as it is. I do it for the country,” and calling CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell “a disgrace” and “horrible people” for asking him about the suspect’s writings.

The fact that nobody was physically hurt is obviously a good thing. But the body blows to the First Amendment might never heal.

The annual dinner is an Oscars-style fete of media and political elite put on by the White House Correspondents’ Association. Every president since Calvin Coolidge has attended at least once. That now includes Trump, although he made a point of not attending during his first term. Famously, 15 years ago Seth Meyers had made fun of private citizen Trump while President Barack Obama watched, laughing.

The oddity that he decided to show up this year — and was welcomed with a rendition of “Hail to the Chief” and an agreement not to book the traditional comedian — was grotesquely ironic. That’s because even more savagely than during his first term, Trump has used the unparalleled coercive powers of the presidency to bully, intimidate and ultimately diminish journalistic freedom in the U.S.

Founded in 1914, the White House Correspondents Association bills itself as representing more than 250 global media outlets and 900 individual reporters who “fight for the broadest access to officials, policies, events and trips,” permitting “the journalists who cover the White House to seek answers from our nation’s highest office on behalf of the American people, who need unfiltered information about government officials to stay informed and make decisions critical to their lives.”

This manifesto reverberates with the core of what has made this nation free — the First Amendment to the Constitution, which expressly bans the government from “abridging” the freedom of the press.

Yet the business-as-usual approach to the annual dinner suggests that a substantial segment of the nation’s legacy media is comfortable normalizing this presidency, a profoundly dangerous turn for democracy.

Soon after retaking office, Trump banned Associated Press journalists from the White House and Air Force One for refusing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” He changed the composition of the White House press pool to elevate friendly outlets such as Breitbart, Newsmax, and One America News Network.

In lawsuits claiming defamation, censorship and deceptive practices, Trump extracted $56 million in settlements from ABC News over its reporter George Stephanopoulos’s commentary regarding the E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse verdict against him, from Paramount Global (which owns CBS) over a 60 Minutes piece on Kamala Harris and from Meta for suspending his account after the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump also sued the New York Times, four reporters, and Penguin Random House over articles and books he doesn’t like. He sued the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch over its reporting on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. He sued the Des Moines Register and its parent company Gannett for publishing an unfavorable poll in 2024. He sued the Pulitzer Prize Board over stories published in 2016 by the New York Times and the Washington Post regarding his campaign’s alleged ties to Russia.

Trump’s “secretary of War,” Pete Hegseth, imposed new rules for Pentagon coverage, claiming that journalists threaten classified information and ordering outlets like CNN, The Hill, The Washington Post, The New York Times, NBC News, Politico and National Public Radio to vacate their dedicated Pentagon Office spaces. Most mainstream outlets now cover the Pentagon from off-site.

FBI Director Kash Patel has filed a $250 million defamation suit against the Atlantic over an article describing his alleged alcohol abuse. He has also sued former FBI official Frank Figliuzzi over a statement made on MSNBC about reports of his partying. Richard Grennell, who was acting director of the Kennedy Center until last month, sued Olivia Troye, a former aide to former Vice President Mike Pence, o