First lady Melania Trump will be joining her husband during his first appearance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner as commander in chief.
President Donald Trump is delivering a speech at Saturday’s black-tie dinner, which he has boycotted every other year he was in office, despite being invited annually.
This year’s event is shaping up to be a potentially humiliating night, as The Wall Street Journal is being honored for its bombshell story about a lewd birthday letter that Trump allegedly sent to the late sex offender and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The president traditionally shakes the award winner’s hands.
Melania Trump will be on hand to witness whatever awkwardness ensues, as she’s also scheduled to attend the dinner, The New York Times reported.
The WHCA announced last week that the Journal would be receiving the Katherine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability for reporting on the 2003 letter.
The letter follows the outline of a female figure and includes an imagined dialogue between the two former close friends.
“A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday—and may every day be another wonderful secret,” it concludes, with Trump’s signature placed suggestively in the pubic area.
Trump has denied writing the letter and sued the Journal for defamation for $10 billion.
A federal judge tossed out the suit on the same day the WHCA announced its award. The Journal’s parent company, Dow Jones, applauded the ruling, while the president has vowed to file an “updated lawsuit” this month.
Melania, meanwhile, made a bombshell statement earlier this month denying she’d ever had a relationship with Epstein, who was found in his jail cell dead of an apparent suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, or his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, despite photos and emails suggesting otherwise.
Trump hasn’t attended the White House Correspondents’ Dinner since 2015, when former President Barack Obama was in office. Melania was in attendance as well.
In 2017, Trump became the first president in 36 years to skip the dinner.
Before that, President Ronald Reagan did not attend in 1981 because he was recovering from an assassination attempt, but he did manage to phone in to the event to crack a joke about the shooting, NPR reported.
The WHCA announced its awards more than a month after Trump committed to attending this year’s dinner.
“In honor of our Nation’s 250th Birthday, and the fact that these ‘Correspondents’ now admit that I am truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of the Country, the G.O.A.T., according to many, it will be my Honor to accept their invitation,” he wrote in a Truth Social post.
The Correspondents’ Association said in a statement it was “happy” that Trump had accepted the invitation, but the group is facing external pressure to push back against Trump, who has repeatedly denigrated journalists and reduced press access.
In addition to the Journal, the president has sued ABC News, CBS News, and The New York Times.
On Saturday, the WHCA will also present The New York Times with the Center for Integrity in News Reporting for White House coverage that “has the courage not to fear and the discipline not to favor.”
CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins—whom the president has called “stupid” and “nasty,” and berated for not smiling when asking questions about Epstein’s victims—will receive the association’s top prize for broadcast coverage.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
