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 campaign rally.”
Earlier in the day, White House Cabinet Secretary Bill McGinley announced that all administration officials were ordered by Trump to skip the dinner, multiple outlets reported.
[Related: Michelle Wolf knocks Trump for skipping White House Correspondents’ Dinner]
Trump ordered a similar boycott in 2017, abruptly breaking with tradition. In 2018, however, White House staff were allowed to attend. White House press secretary Sarah Sanders sat on the dais, finding herself the butt of jokes about being dishonest.
This year, White House staff accepted invitations from news organizations and planned to attend. But the boycott follows several senior officials declining to attend, including Sanders and White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney.
On Tuesday morning, before news of the boycott, White House Correspondents’ Association President Olivier Knox, a SiriusXM journalist, told the Washington Examiner the White House would not send a head-table representative, unlike last year.
In a statement after the boycott was announced, Knox said: “We’re looking forward to an enjoyable evening of celebrating the First Amendment and great journalists past, present, and future.”
The dinner features a presentation of journalism awards and scholarships. Unlike most dinners since 1983, the association asked a historian, Ron Chernow, to host the dinner, rather than the traditional comedian.
George Condon, a past president of the WHCA and National Journal reporter, said Trump’s refusal to attend or send representatives is a stark break from the past, though a handful of dinners were canceled when the president declined to attend.
Historically, if presidents skipped the event, they were represented by the vice president or press secretary.
“From 1924 through 2016, presidents missed nine dinners and sent substitutes eight times. Four times, it was the vice president. Twice, it was the press secretary. Once, it was the first lady and once, it was the chief justice,” Condon said. “Until 2017, the only year a president did not send a substitute was 1930 when Chief Justice and former President William Howard Taft died just hours before the dinner. President Hoover declared a period of national mourning and went to Taft’s home instead of the dinner.”
