--- title: Donald Trump: White House Correspondents' Dinner History description: Donald Trump was roasted at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2011 — he won't attend the first dinner since he became president canonical: https://time.com/4756751/donald-trump-white-house-correspondents-dinner/ author: Mahita Gajanan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-04-27T17:28:01.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T04:37:28.179Z article:section: Politics og:title: A History of Trump Being Trolled at the White House Correspondents' Dinner og:description: Donald Trump was roasted at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2011 og:url: https://time.com/4756751/donald-trump-white-house-correspondents-dinner/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6a70cf906454feb9/6988cada7cdbaca43dd5816c/donald-trump-whcd.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: President Trump Participates Signs Education Federalism Executive Order og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: A History of Trump Being Trolled at the White House Correspondents' Dinner twitter:description: Donald Trump was roasted at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2011 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6a70cf906454feb9/6988cada7cdbaca43dd5816c/donald-trump-whcd.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # A History of President Trump Being Trolled at the White House Correspondents' Dinner > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Apr 27, 2017 5:28 PM UTC  U.S. President Donald Trump speaks before signing the Education Federalism Executive Order that will pull the federal government out of K-12 education, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, on April 26, 2017 in Washington, DC. U.S. President Donald Trump speaks before signing the Education Federalism Executive Order that will pull the federal government out of K-12 education, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, on April 26, 2017 in Washington, DC. Mark Wilson—Getty Images by [Mahita Gajanan](https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/) ## Mahita Gajanan Gajanan is an editor at TIME. Apr 27, 2017 5:28 PM UTC While President Trump is [not attending](http://time.com/4683002/president-trump-skip-white-house-correspondents-dinner/?iid=sr-link1) this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, he has a history of being the butt of jokes at the annual event where journalists, politicians and celebrities typically gather together for a night of levity. The most scathing burn Trump received at the dinner came in 2011, when he attended as a guest of the Washington _Post_. At the time, Trump was in his heyday of promoting the [“birther” conspiracy theory](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/232572505238433794) about President Barack Obama and hinting at a possible run for office the following year. Taking advantage of his attendance at the dinner, Obama dug in to Trump to poke fun at the real estate mogul’s business dealings and doubts about the president’s place of birth. Here is what he [said](http://time.com/3991301/donald-trump-barack-obama/) at the time. --- > “” --- The skewering of Trump did not end with Obama — Seth Meyers, host of the dinner that year, took aim at the Trump for several minutes, complete with an imitation of the future president. “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,” Meyers said, amid several punchlines at Trump’s expense. The scathing remarks did not sit well with Trump, who was filmed looking angry, with his lips pursed and eyes staring ahead. Media and political pundits have since said that the White House Correspondents’ Dinner roasting was what spurred his run for the presidency in 2016. Trump has denied the dinner had any influence on his 2016 campaign, [telling the Washington _Post_](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/02/26/did-the-2011-white-house-correspondents-dinner-spur-trump-to-run-for-president/?utm%5Fterm=.62c0ffa9e927), “There are many reasons I’m running. But that’s not one of them.” Obama again addressed Trump at the 2015 dinner, although he cut right to the chase: “And Donald Trump is still here,” he [said](https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2015/04/25/remarks-president-white-house-correspondents-association-dinner). “Still.” As Trump campaign for the presidency gained steam in 2016, Obama again [fired off jokes](http://time.com/4313618/white-house-correspondents-dinner-2016-president-obama-jokes-transcript-full/) at the dinner that year, both at the expense of Trump and the press. “I hope you all are proud of yourselves,” he said, addressing the media. “The guy wanted to give his hotel business a boost, and now we’re praying that Cleveland makes it through July.” This year, Trump has declined to attend the dinner and announced instead that he will [hold a rally](http://time.com/4751756/trump-pennsylvania-rally-white-house-correspondents-dinner/) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to mark the first 100 days of his presidency. Trump’s break with precedent — since its founding in 1921 the WHCD has hosted every president at least once — came after his several criticisms of the press as “fake news” and accusations that some news outlets are “enemies of the people.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4756751/donald-trump-white-house-correspondents-dinner/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4756751/donald-trump-white-house-correspondents-dinner/"},"headline":"A History of President Trump Being Trolled at the White House Correspondents' Dinner","datePublished":"2017-04-27T17:28:01.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T04:37:28.179Z","description":"Donald Trump was roasted at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2011","url":"https://time.com/4756751/donald-trump-white-house-correspondents-dinner/","keywords":["White House","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6a70cf906454feb9/6988cada7cdbaca43dd5816c/donald-trump-whcd.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Mahita Gajanan","jobTitle":"Gajanan is an editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/mahita-gajanan/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6a70cf906454feb9/6988cada7cdbaca43dd5816c/donald-trump-whcd.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"President Trump Participates Signs Education Federalism Executive Order","caption":"President Trump Participates Signs Education Federalism Executive Order","creditText":"Mark Wilson—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4756751/donald-trump-white-house-correspondents-dinner/","name":"A History of President Trump Being Trolled at the White House Correspondents' Dinner"}}]}] ```