Beltway Journos To Wear SUCK IT, TRUMP Pocket Squares To Correspondents' Dinner, Democracy Saved!
What if we told you they were DESIGNED BY JAKE TAPPER?
Think of all the brave protest movements against violent and totalitarian governments in history. The civil rights heroes who fought for American equality, particularly in the South. The Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto. The democracy advocates slaughtered at Tiananmen Square. For example.
To that list, we can now add the White House press corps, apparently.
Ah, the brave, brave journalists of the Washington press corps. They have for many decades gathered on a Saturday in April for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Dressed in their rented Men’s Wearhouse finery, they would nibble canapés while mingling with whatever Hollywood celebrities were lending the dinner a touch of the cool kids’ imprimatur. There is a reason why the event was affectionately nicknamed Nerd Prom.
The dinner has fallen off in recent years, buffeted by the illiberal winds of the Donald Trump era. Trump himself became the first president to never attend at least one of the dinners during his time in office since the first event hosted Calvin Coolidge in 1924. It was still a decadent monstrosity, but at least it was a lower-key one, with fewer celebs and seemingly less fuss.
This year, with Trump scheduled to attend the WHCD for the first time as president, and potential celebrity attendees reduced to the likes of Rob Schneider and Kevin Sorbo, these courageous backbones of American democracy will take a different tack to acknowledge Trump’s illiberalism, his administration’s disrespect, attacks, and humiliations of the free press. Aware that these are dark times, aware that the United States is living under the most authoritarian and freedom-hating government since at least the Jim Crow era, the reporters have shifted their position.
Sure, they are still going to wear tuxes and nibble canapés while hobnobbing with whatever “celebrities” are still inclined to show up. But they are going to do this while wearing pocket squares and pins inscribed with the First Amendment, in what the newsletter Status calls “a symbolic demonstration that Trump won’t be able to miss from his seat on the stage.”
We suspect Trump will easily miss this symbolic demonstration, seeing as how his brain is entirely made of cottage cheese. But wow, congrats, your collective bravery has the 2026 Pulitzer sewn up.
The pocket squares and pins and other items were reportedly designed by Jake Tapper, possibly the most Beltway of Beltway reporters, and you can buy them yourself with a donation to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Freedom of the press is a noble cause, as it is what allows your Wonkette to call anyone attending the WHCD a fucking tool without getting arrested on a charge of assault with foul language. As a symbol of protest at a black-tie dinner where the president is going to give a speech expressing his utter contempt for you to your faces, however, this is some weak sauce.
Reading about this, we cannot help but reflect on all the humiliations Trump has heaped on the press. He has for more than a decade belligerently insulted them to their faces, diminished them by talking to anyone who asks for his phone number before turning around and sneering at them on his social media feeds, lied to them as many times as there are stars in the universe. He has made the press corps look incredibly dumb and credulous, like a flock of sheep with head injuries.
Shoot, here he is Monday morning telling a reporter for PBS to — we’re paraphrasing — gargle his drooping old-man balls:
And this treatment of the press has extended across the entire administration. Reporters had to take the government to court to maintain access to the Pentagon after drunken hobo king Pete Hegseth demanded that the reporters assigned to the building clear everything they printed with him first. White House press jerk Karoline Leavitt berates and insults reporters on camera every day, and none of them ever stand up for each other. The mainstream media addiction to balancing points of view is why Scott Jennings, that Trump lickspittle, is on CNN every night flat-out lying to America while his co-panelists try not to put their heads through the nearest camera lens in frustration.
So what exactly are we celebrating with this year’s dinner?
Our opinion of the WHCD has evolved over the years. At one time, our feeling was Who cares if the WH press corps wants to slobber over celebs and jerk itself off once a year, they’re the ones who have to live with themselves.
And the dinner always had a celebrity comedian, so we were at least treated to some funny jokes thrown out by our nation’s top stand-up comics like Stephen Colbert and Barack Obama.
Now our feeling is Jesus Christ, why are you all going to this circle jerk to clap like trained seals while this decrepit corpse of a president hurls vile and unfunny insults at you? Why are you even holding this event in the Donald Trump era? Do you not realize that he and his people will see this as a victory lap, proof that he has beaten you into submission, but you are too full of Scotch and bacon-wrapped shrimp to notice?
And yet they continue to show up, in the belief that being inert punching bags to a dementia-addled ambulatory diaper skid mark counts as journalism.
On a Saturday in a little under three weeks, they will show up again to chuckle as Trump heaps insults on their heads. It’s a living, we guess.
OPEN THREAD.
[Status]
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It’s Monday so here’s some Bear to help brighten the start of your week.
https://substack.com/@ziggywiggy/note/c-239005952?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2knfuc
That moment when you are digging through your meme folder and find an old classic that was too perfect for its time.
https://substack.com/@ziggywiggy/note/c-239266842?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2knfuc