Walking around UTA’s annual bash in Washington D.C. Friday night this weekend of the White House Correspondents Dinner, many of the expected scenes abided.
The CNN personalities Dana Bash and John Berman jokingly pretended to introduce themselves to each other before posing for a party photo taken by their colleague, D.C. bureau chief David Chalian.
The U.S. senator Amy Klobuchar stood deep inside the crowd in the giant space of Osteria Mozza, the DC offshoot of Nancy Silverton’s Hollywood staple, greeting a slew of well-wishers.
And a deejay blared Whitney Houston and bartenders poured bespoke cocktails as hundreds of sharply dressed media insiders circulated, laughed and even sometimes danced in a tableau that repeated itself more than a dozen times throughout the capital this weekend.
What made the scenes unexpected, of course, was what was happening outside the party walls. Fears of a tariff-induced recession, concerns about due process over migrant deportations and, of course, the fallout from a DOGE-induced dismantling of so much of the aid and regulatory system all continue to percolate amid the chaotic, convulsive first hundred days of the second Donald Trump administration.
Listen a little harder at the parties, and you could discern that something was off. Phrases like “authoritarian figure” and “The Supreme Court is our only hope” wafted up in conversations; if you leaned in closely you could hear the worried signal amid the party noise. Did one need to lean in too closely? Possibly.
Those outside the annual WHCD bubble might have expected a somber affair for this traditional spring weekend, or no affair in the first place. After all, the flagship event had been visibly transformed, with even the customary comedian canceled and virtually no Republican boldfaced names (and not too many celebrities) turning up to the Hilton ballroom Saturday night. Instead, the dinner this year was retooled as a celebration of the First Amendment, focused on award winners and student journalists.
Yet the parties that surround the dinner over the past several days have in many ways carried on as usual, as attendees seemed to want a break from the dysfunction and a return to the status quo, if just for one weekend with the help of trendy outfits and high-end appetizers.
At one of the most sought-after invites of the year, political fixture Tammy Haddad’s annual “garden brunch” in Georgetown on Saturday afternoon, Schmooze Nation was out in force.
The event takes place at the mansion that once belonged to Katharine Graham and is now owned by the sports investor Mark Ein, and through its many rooms and sprawling enclosed backyard, guests snacked on chopped steakhouse salad and pearl sugar waffles creating a happily convivial buzz.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins greeted Newsmax’s Greta Van Susteren on the steps leading in to the home. The two posed for a photo together, and Collins left by giving Van Susteren a warm “See you later,” referring to the evening festivities.
Toward the other end of the space, near the back of the enclosed backyard, the Shark Tank mogul Kevin O’Leary (he goes by “Mr. Wonderful”) stood for selfies, his brashness a snapshot of the times, even as many might find his sobriquet a misnomer.
Klobuchar was back too. “I know a Minnesota accent when I hear one,” she said laughing as she went over to talk to a lantzman in the front courtyard.
Once again, reminders of the outside world were there, if one knew where to look. Toward the back of the space, near Mr. Wonderful, the doctor-turned Medicare and Medicaid administrator Mehmet Oz could be seen talking intently to guests worried about the state of Medicare and Medicaid, which the TV personality and former Pennsylvania Senate candidate now oversees for Trump.
The grandness of the spectacle, of course, could be read as just a release for the personalities who have been working overtime covering this disruption whackamole. To be surprised by the sights of Trump chroniclers partying in 2025 D.C. would be like pearl-clutching at war correspondents laughing and going hard at the hotel bar; in traumatic places, grief tends to fade the closer in one telescopes. And with the media these days, perhaps even more so. After all, it’s not just the world that can seem to be going up in smoke. The industry itself has been under siege with Trump demanding fealty from journalists, ABC News settling a Trump lawsuit without a legal fight and 60 Minutes veteran Bill Owens resigning because he no longer feels he can be independent.
To those tasked with covering the destruction while facing it themselves, any question to them about their celebratory weekend could reasonably be parried back: Should we not get together?
And yet the optics might still be a little confounding to a D.C. outsider, who could wonder if the celebrations need to be as loud or as large.
Perhaps the most prominent display of clubby insiderishness came at the NBC News-hosted WHCD after party at the midnight hour Saturday at the sprawlingly ornate estate of Laurent Bili, the ambassador of France to the United States.
The event unfolded at a Tudor Revival manor that might be more in place in the mountains of Provence than the dense streets of Northwest Washington D.C.; the indoor space alone is composed of 19 bedrooms, 27,000 square feet and, on Saturday, nearly as many tuxedoed media people. A labyrinth of high-ceilinged rooms culminated in a fireplace-adorned parlor area where, in a whimsical touch, an artist drew caricatures of guests who sat for him. It was a surprisingly intimate moment at an event that otherwise went heavy on the tailored-clothing elbow-rubbing. Those wondering about the elite nature of the media would not be disabused of such notions walking into this event; one overheard snippet of conversation included the line “They’re always trying to get us to go out to the Hamptons, where they keep their boat.”
But to assume the weekend was all the sanctum of the media landed gentry would be to assume wrong. The roar of alternative outlets could be heard too, hints that a baton was being passed, or taken. At a swarming Substack party Saturday night, Mehdi Hasan and many of the platform’s new stars gathered, packing by the hundreds into a hotel ballroom as a deejay played 2000’s and early 2010’s hits from the likes of Phoenix and Robyn. The event seemed pointedly scheduled opposite the WHCA dinner itself (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.) with no traces at the Substack event the WHCD was even going on, a counter-programming mic drop on legacy media.
That perception was enhanced by a piece from one of the most famous of the new Substackers — the television journalist Jim Acosta, who had fled for its refuge after CNN appeared to demote him for his Trump criticisms. Acosta, who has been one of the most pointed critics of media elitism in the current moment, on Friday posted that the WHCD should be stopped during these Trumpian times.
“Forget the steaks at the Hilton. The stakes for our profession are just too damn high,” he wrote. The piece seemed accurate in spirit even if Acosta’s ire might have been aimed in the wrong direction. The First Amendment celebration at the WHCD was sober and on-point, in many ways reassuringly lacking in glamor. It was a lot of other stuff that could read like the victor’s tour with Plutarch Heavensbee.
For those wondering how this all was registering outside the media bubble, a small glimpse came outside one of the late-night parties Saturday when a couple passed in street clothes — he was walking a bike — as a slew of thirtysomething and fortysomething men in tuxedoes spilled out gleefully from the event, floating on the buzz of industry camaraderie and the open bar. “There must have been a wedding,” the woman said turning to her male companion, who shrugged and kept on walking.
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