Raw Story

In 2025, the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) is celebrating its 114th anniversary. The organization, founded during Democrat Woodrow Wilson's presidency, was designed to be an alliance of journalists who covered the White House but were independent of it.

The United States has had some controversial presidents since then, from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump. But before Trump, all U.S. presidents attended the WHCA's dinner — an event that goes back to Republican Calvin Coolidge's presidency in 1924.

In an article published Saturday, The Guardian's David Smith describes some of the anxiety surrounding the WHCA's forthcoming 2025 dinner.

READ MORE: Press should stop 'breaking bread' with 'authoritarian' Trump officials: reporter

"It is no laughing matter," Smith reports. "The annual dinner for journalists who cover the White House is best known for American presidents trying to be funny and comedians trying to be political. But this year's edition will feature neither. Instead, the event in a Downtown Washington hotel on Saturday night will, critics say, resemble something closer to a wake for legacy media still trying to find an effective response to Donald Trump's divide-and-rule tactics and the rise of the MAGA media ecosystem."

Smith adds, "Joe Biden's effort to restore norms included the former president giving humorous speeches at the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) annual dinner. But just as in his first term, Trump will not be joining the group he has long branded 'the enemy of the people,' and most of his staff are expected to boycott."

The WHCA invited comedian Amber Ruffin to speak at their 2025 dinner but withdrew the invitation — a move that, Smith notes, is being criticized as an "exercise in capitulation and cowardice" and "a metaphor for the failure of the media to unite around a strategy to push back against Trump's all-out assault."

"Since returning to office," Smith observes, "(Trump) has seized control of the pool of journalists that follows the president, barred the Associated Press news agency from the Oval Office and handed access READ MORE: 'Everybody is on edge': Trump cuts threaten to dismantle 'godsend' program

Author Sally Quinn, widow of the late Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, isn't planning to attend this year's WHCA dinner —which, she laments, is taking place during a very dark time in U.S. history.

Smith quotes Quinn as saying, "Everyone's scared. You're scared you're going to get thrown in jail if you write something (Trump) doesn't like, and that's going to happen very soon. Then you have the owners of these news organizations who keep keeling over and bending the knee. So you've got all these people in the media who are quitting in protest. It's a horrible time to be covering Trump."

Quinn added, "If you're a journalist and you want to be on the story, this is the story to cover. But people are not having fun covering it. It's very intense and very upsetting."

During a segment on MSNBC on Saturday morning about what the Democratic party needs to do to get back on track with voters, a former GOP House member suggested Donald Trump is giving them a helping hand.

Speaking with the hosts of "The Weekend," ex-Rep Joe Walsh (R-IL) took the side of newly-elected DNC Vice Chair David Hogg who wants to oust some longtime House Democrats with younger candidates in safe districts to shake-up the party.

"That's all inside baseball," Walsh, a harsh Donald Trump critic admitted before adding, "Look, I'm not a Democrat. The Democratic party brand is in the toilet; they need to be shaken up, they need to fight I want to see the Democratic party fight."

ALSO READ:'We’ve made a mistake': Trump’s trade war sends GOP into frenzy

"I want to see new blood," he continued. "Some of this old blood needs to go retire. This is good for the Democratic party. I think what David Hogg is proposing is going to change the change the subject, as it should."

As the segment began to close, he offered a warning to Republicans.

"Look, just one quick final thought," he stated. "Because of the madness and the chaos and the disaster that is Trump, Democrats are going to be competitive in districts and states this year, next year that we can't even imagine right now."

"So doggone it, field candidates, get active, spend money everywhere," he suggested.

You can watch below or at the link.

- YouTube youtu.be

Attorney General Pam Bondi may come to regret approving and then boasting about the arrest of a Wisconsin judge on Friday for allegedly trying to shield an immigrant from being scooped up by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) outside her courtroom.

That is the opinion of ex-U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance who appeared on MSNBC Saturday morning to poke holes in the DOJ's case against Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan, with Vance calling the arrest outrageous and unlikely to lead to a conviction.

Speaking with the hosts of MSNBC's "The Weekend," Vance lambasted Bondi for running to Fox News to hype up the arrest where she told hosts, "We are going to prosecute you, and we are prosecuting you. I found out about this the day it happened. We could not believe, actually, that a judge really did that. We looked into the facts in great depth… You cannot obstruct a criminal case. And really, shame on her. It was a domestic violence case of all cases, and she's protecting a criminal defendant over victims of crime."

ALSO READ:Violent J6er who broke into Capitol announces run for Congress in East Texas

According to Vance, the arrest, with the judge photographed being taken into custody in handcuffs had little to do with "protecting a criminal defendant" than it did as a warning to other judges to not buck Donald Trump's policies.

Noting that the DOJ report on the arrest was at odds with what Bondi was claiming, the former prosecutor claimed it will likely come back to haunt the attorney general doing Trump's dirty work.

"This is all in violation of very clear DOJ policy," Vance accused. "You're not permitted in a case of an indictment or a complaint to go to the press and talk about anything that's not in the four corners of the document, because it prejudices the defendant's rights."

"We will probably see a motion to dismiss this case outright," she then asserted before continuing, "If this was a normal Justice Department. Pam Bondi, [FBI director] Kash Patel, anybody else who was talking about this case on national TV would be referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility for disciplinary action"

"This is not a functional Justice Department," she added. "So the dirty laundry will come out in the wash in these proceedings, where the facts just don't add up."

You can watch below or at the link.

- YouTube youtu.be

President Donald Trump defended his administration following reports that White House officials may have tipped off Wall Street executives about a possible upcoming trade deal with India, The Washington Post reported.

Trump made the comments Friday while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, where he admitted it was impossible for him to know for certain, given the thousands of people who work for him.

“I can commit to myself, that’s all I can commit,” Trump said. “You know, I have thousands of people that work for me, but I can’t imagine anybody doing that.”

ALSO READ: 'We’ve made a mistake': Trump’s trade war sends GOP into frenzy

He added: “I have very honorable people, that I can say.”

Trump was en route Friday afternoon to join other world leaders in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis.

President Donald Trump's so-called "border czar" sent threats on social media following the arrest of a judge.

Tom Homan posted threats on X after the FBI arrested a Wisconsin judge who authorities said helped an immigrant by allowing them to exit a different part of the courtroom. The government alleged it was her way of obstructing justice.

Homan claimed this would continue to be the case for anyone they believe is in their way.

"Nobody should be surprised by the arrest of two judges," Homan wrote. "I have said many times within the past few months, that people can choose to support illegal immigration and not assist ICE in removing criminal illegal aliens from our communities, BUT DON’T CROSS THAT LINE. If you actively impede our enforcement efforts or if you knowingly harbor or conceal illegal aliens from ICE you will be prosecuted. These actions are felonies. More to come…"

ALSO READ: This is not a drill: Trump's new attack on America means no one is safe

He signed the note with his name and role.

Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, "after evidence of Judge Dugan obstructing an immigration arrest operation last week," FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X. He later deleted the post, however.

Sources told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that ICE agents came to Dugan's courtroom the day Eduardo Flores-Ruiz appeared, and the judge allegedly directed the defendant and his attorney to a side door in the courtroom and through a private hallway and into a public area.

The Supreme Court is set to hear an Oklahoma case that will force the justices to choose between allowing more religious control of public schools or "respecting the wishes of the Founding Fathers," according to a new article in The Atlantic.

History professor Adam Laats laid out how, "In 2023, the Oklahoma government approved an application from the Catholic Church to create a virtual charter school. Like other charter schools, this one would be funded by taxpayers. But unlike other charter schools, this one would be explicitly religious, teaching students Catholic doctrine."

Laats wrote that Oklahoma’s state attorney general objected on the grounds that the approval violated the state constitution, as well as the U.S. Constitution.

He explained that the Founding Fathers foresaw "he death of public schooling if schools came under the authority of any specific religious denomination, or even if a school appeared to favor one denomination over another."

ALSO READ: 'We’ve made a mistake': Trump’s trade war sends GOP into frenzy

"Oklahoma’s plan for a public school run by the Catholic Church would...fly in the face of the Founding Fathers’ intentions and go against two centuries of American tradition," Laats wrote. "And it puts the six members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority in a bind. In previous decisions, they have insisted that they will be guided by history, using that rationale to allow for more religion in public schools. In this case, however, if they want to follow their own rules, they must decide in the other direction."

Laats wrote that members of the religious right are "hopeful" about the case that the Supreme Court will hear next week, since SCOTUS has given them "some significant victories in recent years" that were guided by the justices' understanding of history.

"But the case from Oklahoma makes claiming history as a justification harder for the conservative justices," he wrote. "In this case, the history is unambiguous: The Founding Fathers would never have approved of a public school that taught the religious doctrines of one specific kind of Christianity."

Read The Atlantic article here.