I never understood why there was a White House Correspondent Dinner during Trump. The guy was openly hostile to the media. Why have an event where you are inviting him to break bread with you, even if he never shows up?

But even before that, the journalist in me bristled at the idea. Given the view that was growing, even before Trump, that the DC media contingent wasn’t doing a great job holding our leaders accountable because they were a bit too chummy with the very government officials they were supposed to be covering, why provide more bad optics?

Nevertheless, since 2017, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has gone on through major political and cultural shifts, particularly during and after the first Trump presidency. In 2017, comedian Hasan Minhaj hosted the event, but President Donald Trump broke with tradition by not attending—something he continued throughout his presidency, which was probably a sigh of relief for attendees if they were being honest. The 2018 dinner, hosted by the amazing comic Michelle Wolf, drew widespread attention for the fact that Wolf completely owned Trump during it, prompting some silly debate about the role of comedy at the event.

And by debate, I mean “should we be mean to the Rotting Semi-Sentient Carrot?” and instead of a resounding “YES”, the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) apologized for Wolf being so spot on because my goodness, what if Maggie Haberman lost her access. They then opted for the exact opposite of a comedian, a historian (Ron Chernow) in 2019, signaling a temporary shift toward a more restrained tone, which, with all due respect to historians, is exactly what they got.

Then COVID happened and the dinners were cancelled in 2020 and 2021, but they returned during Biden’s time, and went back to the jokes and the president attending. Trump blew it off last year, but this year, Trump will attend, despite his not having such a great time the few times he attended the event before he was president. Like when Obama absolutely roasted his ample orange ass in 2011 so well that some believe may have driven him to run for president (thanks, Obama!). Tomorrow night, Trump will break bread with people he has called “the enemy of the people” and also has a public tantrum planned for the event where he will yell at reporters for who knows how long.

Because everything is so fucking stupid, that’s not all. First-Amendment-Hating FCC Chair Brendan Carr will attend as guests of CBS News’ parent company, Paramount. Never one to be overshadowed, Bari Weiss and her Failed Media Outlet CBS News, have invited Stinkin’ Drunk Pete Hegseth and Professional Weirdo Nazi Stephen Miller. Little Punk Media Mogul David Ellison will even hold a dinner honoring Trump because gotta get that Warner Bros. deal over the finish line.

The organizer of the exercise in masochism, the WHCA, is not going to take all this lying down and is going to clap right back with a strong statement. This strong statement consists of flipping a mass bird at Trump, I mean, wearing First Amendment pocket squares. No, really.

This is the Sternly Worded Letter of pushbacks, and is “have some self-respect” levels of embarrassment.  I guess we should expect this from a group of people who yucked it up when Dubya Bush in the 2004 WHCA dinner made a joke about not finding those pesky WMDs during Iraq, and everyone had a good laugh about a needless war that killed tens of thousands of people (not a great look!). A pocket square doesn’t do a damn thing when you have a man who regularly goes after female members of the press corps as a guest of your annual First Amendment dinner.

On the other hand, there is some pushback. Margaret Sullivan is reporting that an ad-hoc group of veteran journalists is urging the WHCA to include a speech about the First Amendment that would call out Trump’s attacks on it. The Huffington Post announced this week that they are not going to hang out with anti-press monsters and are not attending.

But really, no one should. The WHCA needs to stick a fork in this event. Perhaps whatever Trump has planned for them will finally push them over the edge, and they will wise up. Not holding my breath, because they just can’t seem to quit Trump, no matter how much he abuses them.

The last word goes to Joan Jett.