The most important White House Correspondents Dinner ever

And I was there!

Tonight is the annual White House Correspondents Dinner — the one time a year when politicians and the press who cover them get together to eat a bad meal in a very crowded ballroom in Washington, DC. Did I mention you have to wear a tuxedo (or a fancy dress) too?

I went to 11 or 12 of these events in my life — although I will not be in attendance tonight. (My invite got lost in the mail. Ha!) If you are so inclined, you can watch this year’s dinner here.

President Biden and “SNL” comedian Colin Jost will speak. Both will tell jokes. If past is prologue, the president will be funnier than the comedian because of low expectations and all that.

Biden or Jost might make a joke that creates a bit of controversy. People on the Sunday shows will talk about it. And then, by Monday, most people will forget it (if they even noticed it happened in the first place).

That’s the way these things go. Everyone has fun. Lots of people drink too much. Someone (or several someones) get offended. It all gets forgotten.

Even now, when I try to think about each of the dinners, they run together in my mind. Except one.

The year was 2011. Barack Obama was president. Seth Meyers was the comedian for the night. And Donald Trump was in attendance.

I worked at the Washington Post at the time. We were, back then, still affiliated with Newsweek magazine. And Lally Weymouth, who wrote for Newsweek — and happened to be the sister of WaPo owner Don Graham and mother of WaPo publisher Katharine Weymouth— invited Trump and his wife, Melania to the dinner.

Which, at the time, was (sort of) defensible. By then, the Correspondents Dinner had transformed from a mostly-DC gathering of reporters and politicians into a celebrity-laden event. Kim Kardashian went. Bradley Cooper. Lupita Nyong’o. Natalie Portman.

Celebrity interest in the event known colloquially as “Nerd Prom” was at its height in 2011 — as Barack Obama’s presidency had turned him into a massive culture figure and someone who celebrities wanted to be around. Politics was cool — or as close to cool as it ever got.

And Trump fit the celebrity bill. He was a bonafide reality TV star — first with “The Apprentice” and, by the time 2011 rolled around, “The Celebrity Apprentice.” He was also openly speculating about running against Obama in 2012 and leading the effort to expose the “fact” that the president had not, in fact, been born in America. It was dumb. But it all made a weird kind of sense at the time.

Because I worked at the Post, my table was right next to the Newsweek table — and Trump. From where I sat, I could see him and Melania as well as the people sitting directly across the table from him.

Trump told reporters that he expected some jokes to be directed at him from the dais. “I’m fine with this stuff,” he said beforehand. When he said that, I don’t think he had ANY idea what was coming his way.

Obama kicked it all off — with a speech larded with hits on Trump. Here’s one riff I remember particularly well:

“All kidding aside, obviously, we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. For example, no, seriously, just recently in an episode of ‘Celebrity Apprentice,’ at the steakhouse, the men’s cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around, but you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership and so, ultimately, you didn’t blame Little John or Meatloaf — you fired Gary Busey. And these are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir. Well handled.”

You can and should watch Obama’s full speech here:

Which was fine. Nothing too mean. But also, there was a LOT of Trump content. I mean, a lot.

Then came Meyers. And he absolutely ripped Trump a new one. I mean, savage stuff. (Watch here.)

A sampling of Meyers’ material:

• “Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican — which is surprising, since I just assumed that he was running as a joke.”

• “Donald Trump owns the Miss USA pageant, which is great for Republicans because it will streamline their search for a vice president.”

• “Donald Trump said recently he’s got a great relationship with ‘the blacks.’ Unless the Blacks are a family of white people, I bet he’s mistaken.”

I watched Trump’s face the whole time. He never smiled. Never laughed. And while the people at his table were chuckling at the start of Meyers’ routine, by the time he finished the table was like a morgue.

As Roxanne Roberts, a longtime WaPo style reporter who was seated next to Trump, wrote:

Had I been sitting anywhere else, I probably would have giggled at more of the jokes. But I felt that, personal opinion aside, Trump was a guest of The Washington Post and deserved to be treated with respect. I wasn’t going to laugh to his face. (Okay, his ear.)

Trump was clearly pissed. When the dinner ended (after Meyers’ speech) he beat a fast retreat.

But, the story was far from done. Because Trump had been humiliated in the seat of power. And he hated it. And vowed to do something about it.

As the New York Times wrote in 2016 of that night:

That evening of public abasement, rather than sending Mr. Trump away, accelerated his ferocious efforts to gain stature within the political world. And it captured the degree to which Mr. Trump’s campaign is driven by a deep yearning sometimes obscured by his bluster and bragging: a desire to be taken seriously.

That desire has played out over the last several years within a Republican Party that placated and indulged him, and accepted his money and support, seemingly not grasping how fervently determined he was to become a major force in American politics. In the process, the party bestowed upon Mr. Trump the kind of legitimacy that he craved, which has helped him pursue a credible bid for the presidency.

Trump, for his part, has always denied that his abasement at the dinner had anything to do with his decision to run for president — after several false starts — in 2016. “I loved that dinner,” Trump told the Times. “I can handle criticism.”

Which, of course, he can’t. If we have learned anything about Trump in these intervening 8 years, it’s that he is remarkably thin-skinned — particularly about his own status and standing in elite circles.

Remember that Trump spent a lifetime feeling lesser than. His father was a major developer — but in Queens, not Manhattan. When the younger Trump hit it big and became massively rich, none of the old money country clubs — think Augusta National — would have him as a member. So he had to start his own clubs. And then, just as he was becoming a political leader in the GOP, he came to Washington — and everyone laughed at him.

I am no psychologist but there’s a pattern here. And it’s not hard to see that Trump’s anti-elite, “fake news” rhetoric was born on that night in Washington 13 years ago.

Which means that that 2011 Correspondents Dinner mattered. While most people forgot all about the attacks on Trump within a few days, Trump didn’t. He stewed. He plotted. And he engineered not just a takeover of the Republican party but a coalition that elected him president less than 5 years later.

It’s a remarkable moment in history. Had Trump decided not to come or Obama and Meyers had not gone after him so hard maybe he never decides to run for president at all. And our recent history looks nothing like it does today.