Incoming MSNBC host and former Politico reporter Eugene Daniels used his various sets of remarks throughout Saturday’s White House Correspondents Dinner to predictably and nauseatingly extol the supposed virtues of the First Amendment....which White House reporters behave as though it only applies to them.
Most notably, the outgoing White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) president said “we are not...the opposition,” “the enemy of the people,” and/or “the enemy of the state.” Rather, he said at one point, the WHCA is “an example of American exceptionalism” and embodies “transparency, accountability, and the free flow of information.”
Daniels began prior to the actual dinner by promising “an intense focus on our fabulous scholarship students” (which the event is allegedly for) and the various WHCA awards. He also acknowledged like the partisan tool that he is that “this has been an externally difficult year for all of you” and WHCA because they’ve “been tested” and “attacked.”
“But every single day, our members get up, they run to the White House — plane, train, automobile — with one mission: holding the powerful accountable. Telling the stories of those who can’t tell them for themselves. That has never stopped, and it never will,” he declared to raucous cheers and applause ahead of his personal thank you’s (including a quip he might let his husband take him camping).
Following the meal (and more drinking), Daniels returned to the dais to double down on the need to “celebrate journalism” and the WHCA award winners who’s work “helped remind all of us of the real reason we come together tonight and we go to work every day.” Among the winners were ABC, Axios, the Associated Press, and The New York Times.
Without President Trump there for the liberal media to boo and attack and seethe over, Daniels delivered a pompous introduction to a highlight package of past presidents at WHCDs of yesteryear (click “expand”):
As you all know, every year, we invite the president to this dinner. For decades, Presidents on both sides of the political spectrum get gussied up and join us. I want to be clear about something. We don’t invite presidents of the United States to this because it is for them. We don’t invite because we want to cozy up to them or curry favor. We don’t only invite the presidents who say they love journalists or say they are defenders of the First Amendment and a free press. We invite them to remind them that they should be. We invite them to demonstrate that those of us who have chosen the public service of journalism aren’t doing it because we love flights on Air Force One or walking into the Oval Office. It is to remind why a strong Fourth Estate is essential for democracy. [APPLAUSE] Why, at the end of the day, it’s good for them. Even among the most free nations, the WHCA, what we do, is unique. It is an example of American exceptionalism. Though we don’t have the current president with us tonight, we wanted to hear from some of those who have been gracious enough to sit among the White House press corps.
This went right into the most arrogant portion of the night.
“[W]e stand together in a shared commitment to the ideal that has defined our nation’s democratic principles: transparency, accountability, and the free flow of information. When Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1786 that, ‘our liberty depend on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.’ He and the other framers of the United States understood the danger unchecked power holds to the ideals of this nation,” he declared.
With the WHCA’s relevance on the line, he made the case for its survival because, in his view, it has “played a vital role in ensuring that the American public has access to the truth, no matter how difficult or complex it is. And, in America, the truth is usually complex and often difficult.”
Next, he cartoonishly claimed “our responsibility is not to align with any one party or one agenda but to serve the people of this country with integrity and dedication,” one they “hold in the highest regard knowing that the work we do that helps strengthen the fabric of our democracy.”
After running through data points about the WCHA’s makeup, he hit his laugh-out-loud thesis:
He admirably called out the ongoing case of missing journalist Austin Tice in Syria and last year’s return of The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Gershkovich from Russia, but used them to pivot to the supposedly painful plight of the Associated Press being booted from the White House press pool:
Daniels closed by addressing “young journalists” and insisting journalism “continues to be a noble and essential profession” and invited them “as...future colleagues” to “hold fast to ideals that motivate all of us to enter the profession,” adding:
Of course, he had one last rah-rah for the WHCA, promising in part it “will always defend your right to do your jobs on behalf of your readers, your viewers, your listeners” and “advocate for more access to work powerful people, for more independent journalists to be in the room...on behalf of every single person in this country who doesn’t have access to a White House press badge.”
To see the relevant transcript from the 2025 White House Correspondents Dinner, click here.
