‘More than a little bit unusual’: What to expect for Trump’s first WH Correspondents Dinner

[0:00] Joining us now, some members of the Fake News Mafia, Aiden McLaughlin, Washington correspondent at Vanity Fair, [0:05] and Molly Jong-Fast, MSNOW political analyst, New York Times contributing opinion writer and host of the Fast Politics podcast. [0:14] Aiden, let's start with you. [0:17] You cover the players and the figures inside and outside of Washington that are largely involved with the events surrounding this dinner. [0:27] You, in part, hosted an event last night. What should we be expecting tonight? [0:34] That, I think, is the big question, and it's something that I think is creating a lot of concern at the White House Correspondents Association, [0:40] just because you don't know what Trump's going to do. [0:42] Obviously, this is the first time that President Trump has agreed to attend the White House Correspondents' dinner, [0:49] and from what I've heard, the speech that he's going to deliver is going to be a lot longer than they usually are. [0:54] They're usually around 15 to 20 minutes. He could go on for 45 minutes to an hour from the people that I've been speaking to, [1:00] which would make an event that people typically find tedious, particularly hard to get through. [1:09] Except for the Eugene era. [1:11] Thank you very much. [1:12] For the record, Eugene kept the speech tight. [1:14] I did. [1:15] Very tight. [1:16] In and out. [1:16] And so, I think, to the point of the split screen that you mentioned, that's something that I think has bedeviled Trump's advisers since the first term. [1:26] You know, he's not someone who's known for his messaging discipline, never has been. [1:30] And I can't tell you how many times I've heard in the last couple of months from advisers, from allies, [1:34] how much they would like him to focus on the economy, Americans' economic anxieties, the war, what the war aims are. [1:39] And he keeps getting caught up in these sort of incredibly trivial fixations. [1:45] You know, the key one that people keep complaining to me about is the White House ballroom, which he can't seem to stop talking about. [1:51] And I think the dinner, you know, having a black-tie dinner with journalists amidst all that plays, you know, [1:56] it doesn't do anything to combat that perception that he's not fixated on Americans' problems. [2:01] I—one of the struggles with Donald Trump and covering Donald Trump is that he is a great media manipulator. [2:12] He understands what the red meat—he understands the red meat for his base, and he understands the red meat for us. [2:20] And the—we are talking about him now because he wants us to be talking about him going to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, [2:27] kind of upping it and getting everybody excited, and then he's going to want to say it was the most watched White House Correspondents' [2:33] Center in history because I was there. [2:35] And then tomorrow, as we should, because we should tell the American people what's going on, we would do the same thing. [2:41] And, Molly, I wonder what you think about that quandary of sometimes it feels like us, like, falling into a trap [2:49] while having to do the job that the American people want us to do for them. [2:53] Right. And that's our responsibility, right? [2:55] Our job is to cover this man. He is the president of the United States. [2:59] I mean, the idea is, like, don't platform—you know, this gets into the platforming conversation. [3:04] He is the president, and he is a very powerful president because of the unitary executive theory. [3:09] So he is, in fact, one of the most powerful presidents in modern history. [3:15] That is something that—and he's also more than a little bit, you know, unusual in the fact that he's not disciplined in every which way. [3:24] And so I do think—I mean, look, we were talking about this before. [3:28] Aidan and I have covered him at CPAC before. [3:30] He has given speeches that were, I mean, hours long. [3:35] Like, we went to speeches where we were both like, oh, my God, we are never leaving this room. [3:40] And, like, you could see a situation tonight where he goes on an hour plus. [3:44] And there's no—and, you know, what's scary about him as a president and as a speaker, though those two things are not important, is that he does not operate within the normal norms. [3:56] The political—you know, so much of what we saw in this administration were things that we thought were illegal were just against norms. [4:01] And because no one had ever done something like, you know, level the East Wing, we didn't know if not—if it was illegal or not. [4:11] And that's sort of how we got here is this norms versus laws question. [4:14] I mean, it could be an hour plus and not one time him mentioning the importance and the celebration of the free press because he has sued, threatened to sue, threatened to throw in the jail. [4:24] Or is suing. [4:25] And is suing lots of folks. [4:27] And we have that list of folks being sued. [4:31] But, Aiden, let's go back to the beginning, shall we? [4:37] Of what? [4:37] This moment that, from various reporting, could have been the moment when Donald Trump decided, you know what? [4:47] I'm going to get revenge. [4:49] And I'm talking about April 30th, 2011, when then-President Barack Obama made several jokes about then-private citizen Donald Trump. [5:01] And here's just one of them. [5:04] Now, I know that he's taken some flack lately. [5:08] But no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest to ban the Donaldson. [5:16] And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter. [5:22] Like, did we fake the moon landing? [5:27] And where are Biggie and Tupac? [5:35] I mean, Aiden, that was a completely different time. [5:45] Completely different. [5:46] When normal things happen. [5:49] And he, Donald Trump, was the butt of the joke. [5:52] And I'm going to point it out again, because I did it in the first hour. [5:55] That while President Obama was doing that, he had already given the order to take out Osama bin Laden, which happened the very next night. [6:04] And most importantly, he celebrated and shot it out, the importance of a free press and the people that are working on it. [6:10] Exactly. [6:11] I've been to many of these dinners. [6:13] I did it under Bush, Obama, Clinton. [6:17] I'm sorry, Clinton. [6:18] Yeah, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. [6:22] And each president had a rough relationship with the press. [6:25] And each one of them, after roasting us, said, but I respect what you do, because what you do is vital to democracy. [6:35] But back to the origin story, Aiden, because there is some contention. [6:40] I mean, should we look at that moment that we just played as being the moment when Donald Trump decided, you know what, I'm going to get you, sucker. [6:49] I'm going to get all of you. [6:50] It's so fascinating to go back and watch that moment, because at the time, clearly, you know, President Obama and a lot of people in that room thought Trump was a joke and not a real threat. [7:00] And, you know, he was flirting with running for president at the time. [7:02] The reason Obama was going after him is because he was promoting the birtherism lie. [7:06] Right. [7:07] And that's the same reason that Seth Meyers also skewered him at that dinner. [7:10] But clearly, he was seen as a joke. [7:13] And that's what the dinner was all about. [7:14] He wasn't seen as a threat, at least in, you know, national political stage. [7:18] The fact that that has entirely changed now shows how far we've come since then. [7:23] And it's it's a little bizarre to watch it happen again. [7:27] I know it's just that just took me back. [7:33] You saying that he doesn't he doesn't didn't want to be doesn't want to be seen as a joke to New Hampshire rally 2015. [7:41] Him literally saying at the end of a campaign speech somewhere in like Conway, I'm no longer a joke. [7:48] Right. Right. [7:49] That was how we've been chasing this forever. [7:50] But I also think one of the real things that it shows as well is that even when he was considered a joke, he was still a fixation of people. [7:56] He likes it. [7:57] He still drove headlines. [7:58] It's like, you know, going back to his days in the 80s and New York tabloids when people would call him up just to get a quote in the paper. [8:04] Which goes back to the manipulating the media. [8:06] Right. [8:07] Because he's gone through this thing now where he's been calling journalists, trying to get them to write. [8:12] And this goes back to your question, which is, and, you know, Maggie Haberman, who has covered him for a million years and who really understands this, said it's like a New York tabloid way of working the media, which I think is confidence man. [8:25] That book, I'm telling you, it tells you a lot of what you need to know about President Trump. [8:28] I want to put up the notable Trump administration officials who are said to be attending the White House correspondence dinner. [8:36] President Trump, obviously, First Lady Melania Trump will likely be on the dais. [8:40] Secretary Pete Hexeth, Stephen Miller, and also, and there's some questions for him, whether or not he's going and who he's going with, Brendan Carr. [8:50] And those last three, if going, they will not be on the dais. [8:52] They will be going with other, yeah, CBS or whatever media organizations. [8:57] And I'm curious what you think about, maybe this is a stupid question, is there any world in which they sit in this room and they hear Weijia Zhang, the current president of the WHCA, defend the media and talk about the importance of the media? [9:14] They see the awardees, they see the young kids getting awards. [9:17] Yeah, I, yeah, I don't know. [9:18] That's who we're talking about here. [9:21] There are some people in the administration who do see the press as an important part of, you know, American institutions. [9:28] Pete Hexeth and Stephen Miller are not people like that. [9:30] I mean, you know, Pete Hexeth was on air at Fox. [9:33] It's irony, though, because Pete Hexeth was a weekend TV host. [9:36] You'd think if anyone understood the point of it, it would be half. [9:39] Secretary of, the next Secretary of Defense right here. [9:42] That's right. [9:42] Secretary of Warne. [9:43] Then really leaving the press. [9:46] The thing, though, that's so complicated here is it lays a double-edged sword because there's a lot of people who don't see any, the utility of the press. [9:53] The president himself indicates that with a lot of his rhetoric, consistently denigrating us for now over a decade. [10:00] But at the same time, this is also a president who understands that he does need us. [10:03] And at the same time, he watches you on television and calls you. [10:06] I was just talking with this about another reporter who reminded me that the biggest mistake Ron DeSantis made in running for president was deciding that he didn't need the press. [10:16] He didn't need to engage with anyone. [10:17] And Democrats do that, too. [10:19] The exact opposite approach, and that being the difference in who got more favorable coverage in the presidential primary. [10:26] And more coverage. [10:27] Just more coverage. [10:28] Oh, I'm sorry. [10:30] This is me. [10:32] I keep hearing this, got to go, and I'm supposed to get us out of this. [10:35] You're still talking. [10:36] And I'm talking fast. [10:38] Thank you. [10:38] I'm getting out of it. [10:39] Tell me about it next.