The historian headlining Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington took several shots at President Trump during his speech.
Chosen to speak in lieu of a comedian at this year’s event, Ron Chernow, a historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, said the American republic was in danger because of Trump’s attacks on the media, but expects the United States to pull through.
“The thing that worries me most is the sustained assault on truth,” Chernow said, citing a “relentless campaign against the very credibility of the news media.”
“History shows that, in the short run, the American people can be swept up in all sorts of misguided and wrongheaded things — think Scottsboro Boys, think Japanese internment camps, think Joe McCarthy. But in the long run, democracy endures,” Chernow said.
“Donald J. Trump is not the first, and won’t be the last American president to create jitters about the First Amendment. So be humble, be skeptical and be aware of being infected by the very thing you are fighting against,” he continued. “Campaigns against the press don’t get your face carved into Mount Rushmore, for when you chip away at the press, you chip away at our democracy.”
The selection of Chernow marked a change in tradition from selecting a comedian to perform at the black tie event after last year’s entertainer, comedian Michelle Wolf, was widely criticized for going over the line in her jokes about administration officials and abortion. It was the first time since 2003 there will be no comedian. Then, the speaker was musician Ray Charles, chosen to reflect the somber national mood following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Chernow said the country was at a point where it was taking its comedians more seriously than politicians.
“That certainly describes our topsy-turvy moment. I sincerely hope comedians will be back for many more star turns in the future,” he said.
Chernow joked about Trump’s order forbidding White House officials from attending the dinner. “At first, I was puzzled by this news. But then I learned a rumor was circulating in Washington that I was going to be reading aloud from the redacted portions of the Mueller report and everything was explained,” he said.
Chernow’s speech also examined previous administrations’ relationships with the press. He said the Trump administration’s relationship with reporters was “steeped in venom.”
“I applaud any president who aspires to the Nobel prize for peace. But we don’t want one in the running for the Nobel prize for fiction,” Chernow said.
White House Correspondents’ Association President Olivier Knox, who is chief Washington correspondent for SiriusXM radio, also lambasted the president’s treatment of the media.
“It shouldn’t need to be said in a room full of people who understand the power of words,” Knox said. “But ‘fake news’ and ‘enemies of the people’ are not pet names, punchlines, or presidential.”
For the third year in a row Trump skipped out on the dinner and held a rally in Wisconsin.
