Karoline Leavitt was seen offering a reassuring gesture to Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner as the president listened to remarks honoring journalists who reported on his past ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump attended the revived media gala at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington on Friday, three months after an earlier attempt to hold the event at the DC Hilton was halted in the aftermath of an assassination attempt on April 25.
The evening was largely upbeat, but a tense moment arrived when CNN veteran Wolf Blitzer took the stage to present an award to a Wall Street Journal team.
Several Journal reporters were recognized with The Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability, one of the dinner’s prominent honors.
Their celebrated work centered in part on the widely discussed “birthday card” that Trump allegedly signed and personalized for the disgraced financier Epstein, in a collection reportedly assembled by Ghislaine Maxwell.
As Blitzer noted from the stage that Trump had sued the Wall Street Journal and disclosed one of its reporters’ home addresses, the CSPAN broadcast cut to the president’s reaction.
Trump appeared to take the moment lightly, laughing before shrugging and mouthing, “I don’t know,” while applause and cheers rose in the room.
Leavitt then reached over and gave Trump a couple of supportive pats on the back as Blitzer continued with his introduction.
Karoline Leavitt picked Donald Trump up at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner as reporters who published stories about the President’s connection to Jeffrey Epstein were given an award in front of him.
While the mood was generally jovial, Trump faced an awkward moment when CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer presented a trophy to the team at the Wall Street Journal
The president, however, stood up and shook hands with every member of the paper awarded that night.
Trump later appeared to joke about the awards during his own remarks Friday night, asking: ‘Do I get a say?’
Trump’s case against the Wall Street Journal over the Jeffrey Epstein ‘birthday card’ was thrown out by a federal judge in mid-April.
Trump sued the Rupert Murdoch-owned paper for $10 billion in damages after it published the letter last year, allegedly signed by the President and featuring a lewd drawing with the message: ‘May every day be another wonderful secret.’
The president denied writing the letter and said the signature was not his.
Florida District Judge Darrin P. Gayles said in his order on Monday that Trump failed to show that the article was published with ‘actual malice’ – the legal standard for proving defamation.
To prove actual malice Trump and his team would have to show that not only is the report factually incorrect, but the outlet knew so and decided to publish regardless.
‘This complaint comes nowhere close to this standard,’ Gayles wrote in his decision. ‘Quite the opposite.’
Donald Trump reacts after congratulating the staff of The Wall Street Journal for The Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability
The main story they were celebrated for was the infamous ‘birthday card’ Trump allegedly signed and wrote a personal note to the pedophile financier compiled by his infamous madam Ghislaine Maxwell
‘President Trump argues that this allegation shows that Defendants acted with serious doubts about the truth of their reporting and, therefore, with actual malice. The Court disagrees,’ he continued.
The paper published a letter allegedly penned from Trump to Epstein in 2003, for the late sex offender’s 50th birthday.
‘We have certain things in common, Jeffrey,’ the letter says, adding, ‘A pal is a wonderful thing.’
The note was written in what appears to be the outline of a woman’s body.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein and has bragged of having ended his friendship with the pedophile and kicked him out of Mar-a-Lago decades ago.
The president had vowed to appear at the rescheduled dinner to show that ‘the show must go on’ despite the attempt on his life at the original event.
His wife, First Lady Melania Trump, was absent from the event on Friday night, and he was instead seated next to Press Secretary Leavitt.
White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) President Weija Jiang also sat to his left, and the pair could be seen dining and chatting before the speeches began.
A birthday letter that President Donald Trump allegedly wrote to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein more than 20 years ago
Trump and Melania with Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000
Other guests included Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife, Cheryl Hines, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and incoming WHCA President Jacqui Heinrich.
The rescheduled dinner is taking place with heightened security in the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, a smaller venue that held only about 700 people, instead of the Washington Hilton where the previous event was held.
Speaking at the outset of the event Friday, Jiang highlighted a rare ‘split screen’ moment in the moments after the shooting that halted the original event.
‘While journalists in the ballroom were gathering facts and getting them to the public, I got a rare glimpse of something few of us ever see in real time,’ she said.
‘In a holding room, President Trump was huddled with members of his cabinet, asking questions, finding the best way to share the answers with everyone, which is our job description too.’
‘I keep coming back to that split screen – not because it was dramatic, but because it quietly proved, no matter how complicated or tense the relationship is between the press and the presidency, what we share is far more important than anything else, and that is our duty to serve the American people,’ she said.
