You may recall that the annual White House Correspondents Dinner was interrupted last April 25, then cancelled, after a lone gunman tried to break through security and was stopped.

The event is a venerable tradition. The April dinner was designed for 2,500 guests. The rescheduled dinner was held last night. It was slimmed down to 700 people, which included prominent figures in the media, especially those journalists who cover the White House.

The speech took place at the same time that the Trump Justice Department claims the authority to issue subpoenas to reporters for writing stories that Trump treats as leaks.

Trump did what he does best: he insulted the journalists who cover him, and he ridiculed politicians who are his enemies.

The Washington Post reported:

He said that he had once mixed up CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins, whom he said “never smiles,” with a transgender social media personality, Dylan Mulvaney, after he called the 34-year-old cable news star a “young, attractive woman.”
He said he planned to host twice-weekly fights at the White House.

“We will have sloppy Chris Christie, one of the sloppiest human beings, fighting,” Trump said to silence. “I could mention the governor of Chicago, but I’m going to mention instead Jerry Nadler. Oh my God! They’re fighting for a big piece of cheesecake, big fat piece of cheesecake.”
Then he told a joke about Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California).

“I hate some people,” he said to groans. “He’s a liar, and I called him watermelon head because he has the largest head I’ve ever seen with the smallest neck, pencil neck. How does that make a fat, ugly head on a little pencil neck?”

Trump’s entourage laughed at his vitriolic barbs, but the journalists sat in “stunned silence” as Trump attacked the journalists who cover him.

Trump proved to all who heard him that he has low regard for a free press. But he is a master of insults and disparagement.