Latest Breaking News

Opinion
Jim Geraghty
Excerpts....
In addition to Trump, senators such as Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Tim Sheehy (R-Montana) have urged that the dinner take place in the ballroom when construction is complete, and so has Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania). Fans of the ballroom will ask: If the event is put on by a group of White House correspondents, why not have it at the actual White House?

This is a bad idea, for several reasons.

First, in a typical year for the WHCA dinner, attendance runs up to 2,600, a number the ballroom at the Washington Hilton can accommodate. The White House ballroom under construction was initially said to seat 650 people, but in October, Trump said the room would be able to seat 999 attendees. Attendance at the WHCA dinner would have to be cut by more 60 percent if the capacity is on the high end of the estimate, by three-quarters if it is at the low end.

Second, the White House Correspondents’ Association is a private organization, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Yes, for private events, the federal government can rent out certain spaces, such as the National Archives or some of the Smithsonian museums. (The Smithsonian event policy bars “partisan political events, product sales, religious and civil ceremonies ... gambling, and ticketed events by for-profit entities.”) But the White House has never been rented out for private events (and while the Clinton administration’s use of the Lincoln Bedroom as a thank-you for donors may have sounded like renting it out, that doesn’t count). Once you open the door to the White House ballroom to one organization, all kinds of organizations will want the same deal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/04/28/why-trumps-ballroom-cant-host-white-house-correspondents-dinner/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter