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More than 2,000 journalists, celebrities and politicians, including President Biden, are set to descend on the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner this weekend in what is shaping up to be a major test of whether large gatherings can be safely held at this stage of the pandemic. Organizers say they are committed to holding an event that significantly reduces the risk of coronavirus infections, pointing to vaccine and testing requirements that were strengthened after a dinner hosted by Washington’s Gridiron Club this month was linked to at least 80 infections that sickened Cabinet members, reporters and other guests. Yet some...

Speculation has emerged that the former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign’s tentacles reached into the Trump White House as part of the conspiracy to smear the 45th president.On Friday, special prosecutor John Durham rattled the political world with a court filing that alleged lawyers for the Clinton campaign hired a technology company to infiltrate computer servers and lay a false trail that would implicate the Trump campaign of having contacts with Russia, according to Fox News.Durham, hired to investigate the early stages of the Trump-Russia hoax and root out misconduct, has secured the indictment of Michael Sussman, a lawyer...

Four times in recent weeks, members of the White House press corps have relayed questions to press secretary Jen Psaki from someone claiming to be a fellow reporter who was not able to be there in the room due to Covid protocols. That colleague, who goes by the name Kacey Montagu, doesn’t exist — at least not as an actual reporter. Since late last year, Montagu has taken on the identity of a White House correspondent extraordinaire with a fictional outlet to boot: White House News, shortened in emails to WHN. Montagu started two real-life Twitter handles, which are followed...

The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) is urging journalists to essentially abandon White House grounds following the rise in Chinese coronavirus cases among members of President Trump’s circle, the organization detailed in an update posted Wednesday. In the Wednesday update, the WHCA detailed the efforts it has made to provide the “safest possible working environment for journalists at the White House,” listing its move to reduce seating in the White House briefing room and its enforcement of a mask mandate. However, with the emergence of coronavirus cases, including three among their colleagues, the WHCA is calling on “all journalists to...

Dear colleagues, First off, I want to thank you all for your professionalism under these difficult and uncertain circumstances. Despite it all, we have maintained the protective pool around the president, a responsibility that is now more important than ever. An update on where we stand: As of this moment, three White House journalists tested positive for COVID-19 today. Individual 1 (Numbered in order of notification) received a preliminary positive test this morning at call time in the White House. The individual subsequently left the complex and received a confirming positive test. This individual was also at the White House briefing...

The White House Correspondents’ Association has announced the winners of its 2020 WHCA journalism awards, and CNN has taken home the “MERRIMAN SMITH MEMORIAL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN PRESIDENTIAL NEWS COVERAGE UNDER DEADLINE PRESSURE FOR BROADCAST” for parking outside Roger Stone’s house at 5 a.m. so they could film the armed, no-knock FBI raid on the elderly man’s home.--- Also winning an award was Doug Mills of the New York Times, who captured the famous “Pelosi clap.” "The Speaker of the House lets the nation know exactly what she thinks of Trump as she claps with outstretched arms, tilting her...

On May 27, the American coronavirus death toll rose to six figures: 100,000 lives lost. That's a very sad number, made sadder when we ponder that the virus prevents loved ones from saying goodbye in person and makes any funeral an extremely small event. America's largest national newspapers have all made dramatic front pages out of the number. The New York Times came first on Sunday, filling its entire front page and three more pages with names of the victims. USA Today followed on Wednesday with an entire front page in black and white and photos of the dead. The...

Don't listen to White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany's predictable critics. The level of vitriol the leftist media hurls at her daily -- during and apart from the press briefings -- conclusively proves she is doing a superb job. Liberal journalists whip their long knives in her direction and seem shocked she doesn't grovel. They've been savaging her since her first press conference on May 1. No one with the audacity to work for President Donald Trump deserves a second's worth of honeymoon. On McEnany's first day, New York Times White House correspondent Annie Karni quoted her as saying she...

Shortly before the start of Friday’s coronavirus task force briefing, the White House tried to move a CNN reporter from their assigned seat in the front row to the rear of the Brady Briefing Room, prompting a revolt by reporters who made the administration back down. Reporters Stand Ground After White House Tried to Move CNN to Back Row in Briefing Room By Kristinn Taylor Published April 24, 2020 at 5:28pm 1041 Comments Share (594) Tweet Email Shortly before the start of Friday’s coronavirus task force briefing, the White House tried to move a CNN reporter from their assigned seat...

DOJ puts White House Correspondents' Association on notice that press room is government property and only tradition gives group power to determine access. TThe Justice Department has rejected a CNN political analyst's legal claim he deserved access to President Trump's coronavirus briefings, warning the White House press room is ultimately federal property and not the legal domain of journalists. The DOJ's letter rejecting CNN and Playboy journalist Brian Karem's demands to access the briefings appeared to serve notice to the journalist-run White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) that its power to regulate who attends White House press briefings was based only...

"We are writing to inform you that the WHCA Board has voted this evening to remove a news outlet from the rotation for a seat in the briefing room. We did this because a report for this outlet twice attended press briefings in contravention of this policy. ... We do not take this action lightly. This is a matter of public safety."

Can you believe it's only been a year since alleged comedian Michelle Wolf killed the White House Correspondents' Dinner? And I don't mean "killed" as in "performed really well, in a stand-up comedy sense." I mean "killed" as in "destroyed a decades-old tradition." Wolf stunk up the place so bad in 2018 that the White House Correspondents' Association decided not to have comedians host the event anymore. This year it was hosted by a guy named Ron Chernow, who is some sort of historian, apparently. Not even Jay Leno botched the job that badly. Take a bow, Michelle!* And yet...

There may be empty seats at this weekend's White House Correspondents' dinner following a late-in-the-game boycott ordered Tuesday by the White House. The boycott comes weeks after news organizations invited White House staff and other administration officials to join their tables at the ritzy annual gathering at the Washington Hilton, where tickets cost $300 per seat. "The President and members of his administration will not attend the White House Correspondents Dinner this year," a White House official told the Washington Examiner in an email. "Instead, Saturday evening President Trump will travel to Green Bay, Wisconsin where he will hold a...

The White House Correspondents' dinner, enthusiastically called “nerd prom” for years by Washington journalists looking for champagne and selfies, is sobering up, with next week's gala drawing few celebrities, no president, and now no press secretary. As if to rub in the lost luster of the event, instead of the usual comedian, a historian will serve as the "entertainment." President Trump, snubbing the dinner a third time to host a rally, diverted top aides from the gala, while a faction within the White House Correspondents’ Association nixed the comedy routine, resulting in the least glitzy gathering in decades. C-SPAN hasn't...

US President Donald Trump hinted Tuesday he may drop his boycott of the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner because there’ll be no comedian on the program. “So-called comedian Michelle Wolf bombed so badly last year at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that this year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian. Good first step in comeback of a dying evening and tradition! Maybe I will go?” Trump tweeted. Wolf delivered a controversial star turn at the latest dinner, mercilessly — some argued cruelly — sending up White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, who...

Comedian Michelle Wolf's Netflix talk show,"The Break With Michelle Wolf," will not be returning to the streaming service for a second season. Deadline reported on Friday that Wolf's Netflix series had been canceled only about three months after its first episode aired. The show's last episode was released on July 29. Wolf has not yet made a statement about her show's cancellation. The "Daily Show" star gained widespread notoriety earlier this year after giving a speech during the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) dinner in which she repeatedly slammed White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. "I actually really like...

The Hill said Tuesday it is pulling out of future White House Correspondents' dinners without “major reforms” to the event following the controversy that erupted over comedian Michelle Wolf’s performance at this year’s dinner on Saturday. “The Hill, which has participated in the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) dinner for many years, does not plan at this time to participate in the event moving forward,” James Finkelstein, The Hill’s chairman, wrote in a letter dated Tuesday to Steven Thomma, executive director of the White House Correspondents’ Association. “In short, there's simply no reason for us to participate in something that...

Still, we should be eternally grateful to them for proving for once and for all how the journalistic elite will hide behind any ‘we-didn’t-know-that’ excuse when it comes to getting even with Donald Trump and staffers when it’s their big Dinner Night Don’t believe for a nano second that the ‘journalist’ elite were taken unaware by the vulgarity of ‘comedian’ Michelle Wolf at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ dinner. Not only is the filthy-mouthed Wolf mean-spirited and vulgar, she is blatantly advertised as such by the talent agency promoting her.

"I wouldn't change a single word that I said. I'm very happy with what I said, and I'm glad I stuck to my guns," Wolf told interviewer Terry Gross on Monday. By now you've surely heard all about Wolf's Saturday night performance at the correspondents dinner in Washington, D.C. All sorts of critics have weighed in. There's been a backlash and a backlash TO the backlash, with supporters defending Wolf's controversial jokes. Wolf's interview with Gross is her first in-depth response to all the hemming and hawing. In the interview, airing on Tuesday's "Fresh Air" radio broadcast, Wolf said "I...

Several reporters found comedian Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday to be detrimental to the mission of the evening and a gift to President Donald Trump, who was not in attendance but at a political rally in Michigan. Wolf took gratuitous shots at President Trump and White House officials that journalists at the Associated Press, Politico, Yahoo News, The New York Times, and CNN found to be cruel and off-putting. Wolf laughed at the audience following the negative response of one vulgar joke. “Yeah, you shoulda done more research before you got me to do this,”...