Although first lady Melania Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not be at the redo White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, the likes of White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller will be.
Miller told reporters outside the West Wing Friday afternoon that he was “very excited” and “very much looking forward to” President Donald Trump’s address. En route to the Waldorf Astoria to deliver that speech, Trump was seen in “The Beast” reading through papers in seeming preparation for what the White House has described as “unifying yet vicious” remarks.
At the same time, Miller reflected on the circumstances surrounding the second dinner after the first was cut short on April 25 when alleged gunman Cole Allen, 31, of California tried to storm the Washington Hilton’s ballroom.
“[I’m] very grateful to law enforcement, very grateful to Secret Service, because I know they’ve [put] a lot of work into making sure this is going to be a safe event for everybody, where we can have fun, we can tell some jokes, and yes, believe it or not, we can celebrate all you guys, differences notwithstanding, and have a good, fun night,” he said.
To that end, as an added safety precaution, the White House Correspondents’ Association hired a private security firm to work with the Secret Service on the second dinner.
“What will be different is the size,” former White House Correspondents’ Association President Weijia Jiang, who organized the first dinner, told CSPAN, with the Waldorf Astoria’s ballroom, which Trump helped renovate, having a 700-odd-person capacity.
Jiang added that there will also be “enhanced security measures” that “every single dinner guest has to take” this time around.
“You didn’t have to register to come to the dinner, you didn’t have to provide your name or anything, and now every guest has to register and they’ll get a unique QR code and have to present that with a government issue photo ID just to get through the ticketing, and then they’ll have to go through layers of security to enter the ballroom,” she said.
Trump’s appearance coincides with his Justice Department’s decision this week to withdraw subpoenas for information from New York Times reporters and their families regarding their reporting into security concerns related to the new Air Force One that was gifted to Trump by Qatar’s own royal family.
Trump defended his administration undertaking that leak investigation, comparing his actions to those of former President Barack Obama.
“We’re not after journalists,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday. “We’re after leakers. We’re after people that are cowards, people that are unpatriotic, people that are treasonous in many cases.”