Donald Trump is attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner for the first time since becoming president, and his very presence at the event is causing some would-be attendees to skip out. In particular, the cohosts of The View revealed on Friday’s (April 24) episode that they are skipping the event this year due to Trump’s attendance.
The cohosts reacted to certain journalists’ statements about boycotting the WHCD due to Trump as their first “Hot Topic” of the day.
Joy Behar kicked off the conversation by reminding viewers that she was there for the last time Trump attended the WHCD, in 2011, when Barack Obama was president and notoriously roasted Trump in the audience. “He was there one time when I was there, the time that Obama humiliated him, and he went bananas, I was there,” Behar said. “So here’s the situation, a guy that hates the press is at a dinner that honors the press. You can’t even make this up anymore.”
After reviewing footage of reporters like April Ryan saying bringing Trump to the dinner is like inviting a “fox into the hen house,” Alyssa Farah Griffin then argued that Ryan and others should attend the event anyway.
“They should show up. Let’s remember that the White House Correspondents Association, it’s first and foremost about protecting the First Amendment and rallying around journalists who do incredible, important work, informing all of us,” she explained, adding, “At this event every year, they give away scholarships. They honor people who have shown courage in journalism. My colleague and Ana’s colleague, Kaitlan Collins, is receiving an award for her coverage of this White House, somebody who we all have seen President Trump insult her, criticize her, and she stands there stoically and keeps asking questions that we all want the answers to. So the night should be and is about the journalists, regardless of who headlines it, regardless of the speech from the president.” She then pointed to reports that Trump will merely “give his remarks and then leave.”
Ana Navarro argued, “The White House Correspondents Association should not accept that. If he is going to show up, he should sit there while Kaitlan Collins gets her award.”
She then explained why she’s passing on the invitation to go. “I can tell you, we get invited every year, and I am glad there’s people going, because, as Alyssa said, this raises money for worthwhile causes. For me, there is no way in hell I would normalize Donald Trump’s presence by showing up. For me, as a Latina immigrant, no community has been as maligned, humiliated, prosecuted, and tortured as much as the immigrant community and the Latino community, and there’s just no way that I’m gonna go put on Spanx and high heels, drink cheap wine, eat a bad chicken dinner, and smile at the stupid things he says.”
Sara Haines joked that it was host Oz Pearlman who was keeping her away since he’d revealed her pin number before, but then said, on a more serious note, “I echo what Anna and Alyssa said about the importance of it, but the dinner for me was always to sit side by side with your colleagues and kind of have this moment where you’re appreciating the journalism and the role it plays in how we hold politicians accountable, and it’s just not a funny or enjoyable anymore right now. It’s because the press and the media have been under attack for almost going on 10 years now, and kind of slandered for everything they cover. It’s not a time where you can kind of just shoot one back and feel laid back about it.”
Sunny Hostin then talked about how Trump inspired her decision to RSVP no in a fiery diatribe: “We always get invited. We’ve all gone together. I will not go this year. I am not going to go this year because I won’t grace him with my presence because I think he’s been attacking the press. He qualifies as the most anti-press president in the dinner’s 105-year history, retaliatory access bans and physical restrictions on journalists, frivolous lawsuits against the press, defunding of public broadcasting, dismantling of international broadcasting, personal verbal attacks on reporters, especially Black female reporters, assaults on the media, and official releases and social posts, and the arrest of my friend Don Lemon. I don’t care about this president’s attendance at that, but I do care about journalists making him appear to be normal. He is the most abnormal president that we have ever had.”
Navarro closed the segment on a stern note, saying, “Listen, having Donald Trump speak at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where the free press is honored, is like having a cannibal host a vegan event.”
The View, weekdays, 11a/10c, ABC
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