President Trump on Friday said he’ll once again boycott the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — calling it “boring” and “negative” — and will hold a rally instead.
“I’m going to hold a rally, because the dinner is so boring and so negative,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House.
“I like positive things,” he added as he announced that he will skip the black-tie event, where presidents traditionally rub shoulders with journalists, for the third time.
The dinner, which will be held April 27 at the Washington Hilton, will feature no comedian this year after Michelle Wolf last year verbally attacked White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
The White House Correspondents’ Association, which runs the fundraising dinner, booked historian Ron Chernow as the keynote speaker this year.
Asked if she has made a decision about attending the gala, Sanders last week told The Hollywood Reporter “nothing yet.”
Counselor to the president Kellayanne Conway, who also attended last year’s dinner, did not respond to the news outlet when asked if she plans on going to the event.
Although he has not attended any of the dinners since he has been in office, Trump did go previously.
During the 2011 dinner, Trump attended as a guest of the Washington Post and was mocked by President Barack Obama. The humiliating experience is widely believed to have sparked Trump’s 2016 quest for the White House.
Last year, Trump called the dinner “a total disaster and an embarrassment to our great Country and all that it stands for.”
The president has had a contentious relationship with the media, regularly slamming coverage he dislikes as “fake news” and labeling certain outlets and journalists the “enemy of the people.”
Trump said he has three sites for an April 27 rally in mind, and that “everybody wants it” and “it will be a big one.”