00:00Joining us now is Bloomberg White House correspondent Jeff Mason. He was at last night's dinner. He was president in
00:04the past of the White House Correspondents Association.
00:06Jeff, great to see you. And I guess I should start just by asking you about the feeling in the
00:09room.
00:10We were all there at the first iteration of this dinner. It took place at the Washington Hilton, a giant
00:14ballroom.
00:15This was a much smaller affair, different affair.
00:18How much was the program last night duplicative of what was supposed to happen at that first dinner just a
00:22couple of months ago?
00:23I think it was pretty close. In fact, the fact that, of course, the president spoke, the president of the
00:30association spoke, the awards were given to members of the press and also student journalists were recognized for scholarships.
00:38And then there was the mentalist at the end as well.
00:42It was pretty much the program that was meant to have gone on in April, just three months later.
00:47And with the fact that that shooting stopped that dinner, that was overshadowing, I guess you could say, this dinner
00:57again.
00:57But in general, the program was the same, but the venue was smaller.
01:01And that was very noticeable, certainly for someone who's attended a bunch of dinners.
01:06The ballroom at the Hilton, of course, fits more than 2,000 people.
01:09It's the biggest ballroom in Washington.
01:12And this one was instead of about 2,600 people, there were fewer than 700 in the room.
01:18That doesn't mean it's small, but it's just a much, much more, I guess you could say, intimate size of
01:24a dinner.
01:25And that changed the mood in the room, too.
01:27And we can talk a little bit more about this.
01:29But when the president spoke, I think that he also was speaking to what, for him, was an unusual crowd
01:39in that most of the people in that room were journalists like myself.
01:43And it was not a friendly crowd for what ended up being very much like a rally speech.
01:50That's an interesting point, Jeff, because, I mean, we attended the First Center, and it is a huge ballroom, as
01:54you mentioned.
01:55And it's a mixed crowd because the journalists invite so many guests.
01:57You have entertainment people.
01:59You often invite people who are familiar or close to the White House.
02:03This is a much smaller room.
02:04And I imagine, you know, if he's used to speaking to a bigger crowd, it's harder when the audience is
02:10right in front of you and you can see some of those reactions.
02:12I mean, what were the reactions to jokes like, I'm assuming it was a joke, you know, running for a
02:16fourth term and some of the other remarks.
02:17And then there were also, you wrote a few awkward moments where awards were presented to journalists for being hard
02:23on this White House.
02:24How did the president react to that?
02:26Yeah, I mean, to your first question, first, the reaction were a lot of straight faces in the crowd because
02:32that's our job, you know.
02:33I mean, I certainly was keeping a straight face, and I think so were most of the reporters in the
02:38room who are committed to neutrally covering this president
02:42and recognize that that joke, as it were, of him running for what he'd call the fourth term is a
02:49joke about the Constitution,
02:52which, of course, prohibits him from running for another term when he's already served two, which he will have at
02:58the end of his second term now.
02:59But he, I mean, it's also, again, a quote-unquote joke that is rooted in the fact that that's something
03:06that he was actively thinking about at the beginning of this term
03:10and something that he has openly mused about before.
03:15I think right now it is a joke.
03:17I mean, he has stopped talking about it regularly, particularly after Speaker of the House Mike Johnson basically told him
03:25this is unconstitutional,
03:26and he seems to have accepted that.
03:29And so I think, you know, I think he wanted, he likes to poke at the press with stuff like
03:34that,
03:34and that was one of the things that he did last night.
03:38Remind me your other question, Christina.
03:40That's all right, Jeff.
03:40We can move on.
03:41I know you've had, like, three hours of sleep, so we're very grateful for you getting up.
03:45A friend of the show, Jeff Mason, we really appreciate you.
03:48David, go ahead.
03:48Yeah, just a generous, I mean, there's been this, over the course of having this dinner,
03:53there's been a conversation about should it be smaller?
03:54Should it involve fewer celebrities, fewer members of the administration?
03:57I'm curious, as you experienced the dinner last night, did it give you a sense of maybe this is the
04:01way that it's headed?
04:02In light of the criticism most recently that it faced after that first dinner,
04:06how has the conversation about the longevity of this dinner changed, you know, in the context of the one that
04:11we had last night?
04:12You know, I think the answer to that is still TBD.
04:16The incoming president of the association, Jackie Heinrich, who works for Fox News,
04:21announced that the dinner would be held again next year back at the Hilton.
04:25So that was certainly a foreshadowing by the association that they're not looking to keep the scaled-down version as
04:33a model.
04:35But, yes, you're not wrong to say that this sparked a lot of conversation,
04:39certainly about security at the Hilton and security for this event.
04:42But it also sparked some conversation within the press corps itself about this dinner more broadly.
04:51And it's, you know, there are people who are big fans of this dinner in Washington,
04:56and there are people who aren't.
04:58And I imagine those conversations will continue.
05:01And I imagine those conversations will continue.
05:01And I imagine those conversations will continue.
05:01And I imagine those conversations will continue.
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