The White House Correspondents’ Association canceled its annual honorary dinner after scrapping its spring date because of the coronavirus pandemic.
WHCA President Jonathan Karl, the White House correspondent for ABC News, announced on Tuesday that the dinner, which had been postponed to late August, will no longer happen this year.
“We’ve been working hard to reconfigure the dinner in ways to make it safe for guests and staff. But after consultation with medical experts, government authorities and our own members, we’ve concluded that it is not possible to put on the kind of dinner that promotes the best in journalism and allows our guests to comfortably and safely enjoy themselves,” Karl said in a statement.
Karl said the association is “working at this moment on a virtual presentation that would allow us to salute award-winning journalism, toast an impressive group of scholarship winners, and still enjoy a few laughs.”
This year’s event, which was originally scheduled to take place in April, was set to bring comedy back with Kenan Thompson of Saturday Night Live hosting and Hasan Minhaj listed as a featured entertainer.
President Trump has never gone to the dinner, which presidents typically attend, since taking office. He has labeled the event “boring” and “negative.”
In 2018, the dinner turned contentious when then-White House press secretary Sarah Sanders became the butt of some controversial jokes by comedian Michelle Wolf. Instead of having a comedian at last year’s event, which is traditional, historian Ron Chernow was the featured speaker.
