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Here's Scott Jennings' Take on Trump's White House Correspondents' Association Dinner Speech

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  July 25, 2026 7:00 AM

Cam covered the speech last night, but you know the media will go off the rails in the coming days: President Trump spoke at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which was rescheduled after an assassination attempt on the president cut the original event short in April. Cole Allen tried to barge into the main dining hall with a shotgun, where Trump and his officials were the targets. 

Last night’s dinner was at the Waldorf Astoria in DC. Thankfully, no one attempted political violence, though the president did take a katana to the fake news press, most of whom hated being there. It’s no surprise: it’s a room where everyone dislikes each other. It was still incredible: The Wall Street Journal winning an award for publishing that story about Trump sending Jeffrey Epstein a birthday card, an apocryphal story at best—Trump shook the hands of the reporters from the publication who won the award. Still, the Associated Press was not pleased with the remarks:

President Donald Trump returned to the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Friday night, delivering a rambling, hour-long speech that praised some journalists, took potshots at others, made jokes about public figures’ weight and intellect, and quipped about a third presidential term.

[…]

Trump’s return to the correspondents’ dinner — and his promise to come back next year as well — represented a notable moment in his relationship with the news media, which he has attacked, sued and taken administrative action against since he began his second term early last year. Among the audience members were reporters he had denounced and barred from events.

Trump’s sometimes off-color speech, which lasted just over an hour, was full of vague potshots directed at individuals he doesn’t like — from Jane Fonda to Bruce Springsteen to “Barack Hussein Obama.” The audience, reacting at first with some friendly laughs, slowly quieted to scattered titters as the insults piled up.

Among other targets of Trump’s humor: Late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel; Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; California Gov. Gavin Newsom; former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie; and Trump’s own speechwriters, whose jokes he sometimes criticized even as he delivered them. Some of the comments flirted with racism.

Oh, it wouldn’t be a Trump story from the establishment press if shoddy allegations of racism weren’t lobbed. Insults? These people insult Trump and his supporters daily, though the joke about Kaitlin Collins, Dylan Mulvaney, and Bud Light was a bit harsh, but it’s what it is. Of course, CNN’s PR shop issued a statement. 

Scott Jennings offered a calm and straightforward opinion, noting that the speech's start was good with the denunciation of political violence and the joke about RFK killing the cow that provided dinner meat. However, the ending included some jokes that didn’t land and wouldn’t be well-received, coming off as a bit “onery”:

He started the speech with something that I thought was good and necessary. We do not yield to political violence. I thought that was probably the best line of the speech, given the nature of the event tonight. And he ended the speech by saying, I have great respect for your profession. Now, the middle of it is going to be controversial because some of the jokes landed. and some of the jokes didn't. I thought the best joke was the RFK joke. You know, I hope you enjoyed the beef. He ran over the cow. That -- I think that was -- was probably the best joke of some of the jokes veered off into very, sort of ornery insults, and that's not going to land for many audiences. But I did like the part about not yielding to political violence, and I did like the fact that he did show respect to the press and their role in our American politics.

Yet, an iconic image was Trump wearing a Trump 2028 hat, with the WHCA logo in the back, and its current president, CBS News’ Weijia Jiang, visibly uncomfortable with the bravado. The ‘oh s**t’ look is visible, which made this photo absolute cinema.