President Donald Trump returned to the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Friday night, three months after gunfire abruptly ended the original event, delivering an hourlong speech that opened with a solemn tribute to the victims and first responders before gradually giving way to familiar grievances, campaign-style riffs and renewed attacks on political rivals and the media.
“As I said three months ago, the show must go on,” Trump told the roughly 700 guests gathered under heightened security at Washington’s Waldorf Astoria, where the annual dinner was rescheduled after the April shooting. He praised the Secret Service officers and law enforcement personnel who responded that night, calling the attack “an assault on our democracy itself” and declaring that “we do not yield to political violence.”
