Trump returns to rescheduled correspondents’ dinner armed with insults and praise

President Trump addressed the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Friday night, the event’s first full gathering since an armed suspect disrupted the previous dinner months earlier, opening his remarks by praising Secret Service and law enforcement personnel for their response that night.

He reflected on his time as president and working with the press to lobbing insults against his political opponents and roasting some journalists.

The speech, which lasted over an hour and was received with stunned silence or nervous laughter by some attendees, concluded with the president wearing a red cap with “Trump 2028” letters, joking that he was preparing to run for a fourth term, which the Constitution prohibits.

The dinner was held at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C., where about 700 attendees were present, a stark contrast from the nearly 3,000 guests who were at the Washington Hilton event on April 25, which is where the dinner will return to next year.

Mr. Trump singled out Secret Service Officer Victor Gonzalez, whom he credited with stopping the attacker, who he described as a “deranged loser with a gun,” at a security checkpoint. He thanked the Secret Service, Metropolitan Police and military personnel in the room.

“Victor did not even want to go to the hospital for a checkup,” Mr. Trump said. “We salute you, and we thank you with all our hearts. Thank you very much.”

“We settle our differences not with bullets,” but “with open and vigorous debate,” he said.

“As I said three months ago, the show must go on,” Mr. Trump said at the beginning of his speech.

The president described how his first speech at the April gathering “was going to be a doozy” and how he was “psyched” to deliver it, saying, “I was going to rip people, and I don’t know, just something changed.”

Mr. Trump did, however, promise to engage in some ribbing at Friday night’s gathering, including Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York.

“It’s traditional that at least one or two potential presidential hopefuls attend the correspondents’ dinner. But many of them seem to have really chickened out,” Mr. Trump said.

“I was disappointed that Gavin New-scum (sic) didn’t show up. He didn’t show up. He should be here.”

The president also spurned Ms. Omar, saying she should not be in the country.

“She’s a low IQ person, and she’s also a very dishonest person and should get the hell out of our country. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be in our country.”

“She also calls her brother husband number one. Omar is reportedly being investigated for fraud. She revised her net worth. I was shocked to see that she was worth much more than $30 million,” he said.

“And then, when the press got on her, she revised it slightly downward to less than 18,000. So she went from much more than 30 million to 18,000.”

Mr. Trump also took shots at Wall Street Journal and CNN reporters, whose reporting he is at odds with, after they were presented with WHCA awards earlier in the evening.

“I want to personally congratulate CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on receiving her award. It was all about me. It’s a fake. She shouldn’t get the award. It was a fake,” he said. “But I didn’t mind. I said, ‘Kaitlan, congratulations’….But she’s a young, attractive woman. She never smiles. ‘I said, Kaitlan, do you have a smile? Smile.’”

Mr. Trump reiterated that he did not decide to run for the presidency in 2016 because former President Barack Obama roasted him at the correspondents’ dinner in 2011.

“They keep playing it because they think that was the evening I decided to run for president. It was not. In fact, I loved the evening. I looked at my wife, I said, ‘Can you believe it? All these people, that’s all they’re doing is talking about me. I love this dinner,’” he said.

“It had nothing to do with it. I just decided that I wanted to make America great again. This had nothing to do with that dinner.”

Mr. Trump said he skipped the dinners during his first four years because he felt the press treated him unfairly, but he promised he would return to next year’s correspondents’ dinner unless the press gets “really nasty.”

Mr. Trump also discussed the ongoing construction project beneath the White House and a new ballroom he said the administration was building on an accelerated timeline.

He closed by thanking attendees, saying he had “made a lot of friends” at the event, “and probably made some enemies also.”