President Donald Trump could face fresh embarrassment at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner later this month, as he will be in attendance to see The Wall Street Journal pick up a prestigious award for a story concerning him.
Trump has not accepted an invitation to the annual press gala in Washington, D.C., since 2015, after suffering a particularly brutal roast by Barack Obama at the 2011 event, which is said to have motivated his run for the presidency.
However, he unexpectedly announced on Truth Social in March that he will be there this year on April 25, breaking his long-standing boycott, having decided that members of the press corps “now admit that I am truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of our Country, the G.O.A.T., according to many.”
“It will be my Honor to accept their invitation, and work to make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER!” he added.
But the occasion is already threatening to get awkward, after the White House Correspondents’ Association announced Monday that the WSJ will receive its Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability for its July 2025 story about Trump allegedly sending a “bawdy” birthday card doodle to Jeffrey Epstein.
The announcement came on the same day that a federal judge dismissed the president’s $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the newspaper over that exact story, which he brought after repeatedly denying authorship of the drawing and insisting it did not exist.
Despite Trump’s protestations, the House Oversight Committee subsequently acquired a copy of a sketch closely matching the WSJ’s description of the item from the Epstein estate.
“May every day be another wonderful secret,” read the card, bearing what appeared to be Trump’s signature beneath an outline of a naked woman’s torso, which appeared in a celebratory album compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice and former girlfriend, to mark his 50th birthday.
Florida District Judge Darrin P Gayles ruled Monday that the president had not only failed to prove the WSJ had acted with “actual malice” in publishing its story, but he had also come “nowhere close to this standard… Quite the opposite.”
The president has never been formally accused of wrongdoing in relation to the disgraced billionaire, who died in August 2019, but has faced repeated questions about their past friendship and was mentioned numerous times in the Epstein files released by the Department of Justice, although that should not be interpreted as evidence of guilt.
The prospect of Trump having to oversee the presentation of the Katharine Graham Award, which “recognizes an individual or news gathering team for coverage of subjects and events of significant national or regional importance,” was first raised by Puck senior correspondent Dylan Byers.
“Drama at this year’s White House Correspondents Dinner,” Byers posted on X (Twitter) Monday.
“The Wall Street Journal is being awarded The Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability for its reporting on the ‘bawdy’ letter that Trump sent Epstein. Trump, who sued the Journal over this story, is expected to present the reporters with the award.”
He added an important caveat, however: “President doesn’t technically *present* the award, but historically presidents have been present for awards and shake hands of recipients. Trump’s plans, as always, are TBD.”
The commencement of Operation Epic Fury against Iran on February 28 has largely driven the Epstein affair from the headlines over the last six weeks, only for first lady Melania Trump to unexpectedly revive it Thursday by delivering a surprise press conference from the White House.
In her remarks, the reason for which was not immediately obvious, the president’s wife said the “lies” linking her to Epstein “need to end today,” saying they had only ever “crossed paths” at social events in New York and Palm Beach in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and calling for a congressional investigation into him for the sake of his victims.
Trump subsequently told MS NOW reporter Jacqueline Alemany that he had not known in advance that Epstein would be the subject of the first lady’s address, but said she had a right to speak her mind.
