White House says Trump to give ‘unifying yet vicious’ speech at rescheduled press gala | Washington DC

The rescheduled White House correspondents’ dinner continues in Washington, three months after the first event was canceled in April when a man fired a shotgun at a security checkpoint outside the ballroom.

Donald Trump arrives at Waldorf Astoria for rescheduled gala; Organizers say it will feel smaller and more intimate than the gala, which was evacuated after shots were fired at the hotel suspected of targeting the president and his administration.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had previously promised that Trump’s speech would be “unifying but mean, serious but funny, if you can imagine it.”

Usually, part of the celebratory meal is dedicated to Victor Gonzales, the Secret Service officer who was shot and wounded while helping stop a gunman in April, and to hotel staff who assisted guests during the attack.

Cole Allen, accused of the shooting, pleaded not guilty to attempting to assassinate the president.

A pioneering team spent weeks preparing a security plan for the new location, and U.S. Secret Service director Sean Curran told reporters this week that agents were bracing for trouble even at a black-tie dinner. “We’re waiting for bad people to show up,” he said.

While it’s tradition for presidents to speak at the annual White House correspondents’ dinner, Friday’s speech will be Trump’s first at the event in both of his terms (he boycotted it during his first term) and will be closely watched given his long-running conflict with the press corps in the room.

He sued numerous news organizations over their coverage of him and routinely dismissed negative news as “fake news.”

The Trump administration went further, banning the Associated Press from the White House press pool and restricting other journalists’ access to the Pentagon.

Not on the guest list this time: Melania Trump, JD Vance and Marco Rubio, who were there in April.