Karoline Leavitt stuns White House press corps with another major break from tradition

In a stunning break from tradition, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has announced she will boycott the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) dinner next month. 

The move continues the Trump administration's deepening feud with the White House press corps - the group of journalists who cover the president and White House daily. The group attend briefings, travel with the president, and report for various media outlets.

'I will not be in attendance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, and that's breaking news,' Leavitt declared during Friday's podcast appearing with her predecessor and longtime Trump loyalist Sean Spicer on his self-titled podcast.

The annual WHCA dinner, scheduled this year for April 26, has long been considered the 'Oscars of Washington', an iconic, bipartisan night of comedy and charity where every US president since Calvin Coolidge in 1924 has attended at least once - except Donald Trump.

Trump snubbed the event throughout his first term and looks poised to do so again.

Leavitt's decision comes amid a fierce and ongoing power struggle between the White House and the press corps, with Leavitt herself at the center of efforts to reshape White House media access.

Leavitt, 27, has looked to exclude traditional outlets and favor right-wing platforms that align with Trump's political narrative. 

But her final decision to skip the event entirely speaks volumes and is a clear message that the Trump White House sees no value in participating in what they view as a hostile gathering.

By not attending, Leavitt is doubling down on the administration's confrontational approach, signaling that the Trump team sees little use in currying favor with a press they accuse of bias.

The WHCA dinner has essentially served for over a century as a rare evening of bipartisanship where presidents and the press can share laughs and jabs in a celebration of the First Amendment. 

Presidents from FDR to Obama have used the evening to poke fun at themselves, even as journalists sharpen their critiques.

But Trump's refusal to attend during his first term shattered that precedent, and now Leavitt is following suit, taking a step further to publicly rebuke the WHCA as a 'monetized monopoly.'

'This is a group of journalists who've been covering the White House for decades,' Leavitt said on Spicer's show.  

'They started this organization because the presidents at the time were not doing enough press conferences. I don't think we have that problem anymore under this president, so the priorities of the media have shifted, especially with this new digital age.' 

She went on to accuse the WHCA of being an 'exclusive group' that has 'not really welcomed other people, new media, independent journalists, with open arms.'

'We thought it was time to expand the coverage and determine who gets to be part of that 13-person press pool, who gets to ask the president of the United States questions in the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One,' Leavitt explained.

'Since we have started this new process of determining the daily rotation, so many new voices and outlets who have never been part of this small and privileged group of journalists have been able to access those very unique and privileged spaces and cover this presidency and that's very important,' she added. 

Her rejection of the dinner is the latest salvo in what has become an open conflict between the Trump White House and the established press corps. 

Just last month, Leavitt announced that the White House and not the WHCA, would now control which reporters make up the prestigious press 'pool' - the small group of journalists given close access to the president inside the Oval Office, aboard Air Force One, and in limited briefings.

In a controversial move, the Associated Press was booted from the pool after refusing to adopt Trump's executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the 'Gulf of America.' 

The White House even trolled the AP by posting a victory sign - 'Victory: Gulf of America' - inside the briefing room, underscoring the administration's willingness to clash head-on with the media establishment.

Leavitt has framed such decisions as democratizing access to the president, explaining how more than 15,000 applications have poured in from 'new voices and outlets' eager to join the daily press pool and claim the 'new media' seat.

'For decades, a group of DC-based journalists, the WHCA, has long dictated which journalists get to ask questions of the president of the United States in these most intimate spaces,' she said in February. 'Not anymore.'

WHCA President Eugene Daniels has condemned the administration's actions, warning how they 'tear at the independence of a free press in the United States.

'Leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps. It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president,' Daniels said.

'In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps,' Daniels warned, fearing the precedent being set could outlast Trump's presidency.

The White House sold the move as them modernizing the press pool to expand it past legacy media. 

The Trump administration said the three traditional wire services, (Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters), would no longer have a permanent spot in the pool and would instead rotate a single spot in the 13-member group. 

Even Fox News' Jacqui Heinrich, a WHCA board member, blasted the move, writing that it 'gives power to the White House, not the people.'

The Associated Press filed lawsuit against the White House for its expulsion from the pool but a judge has so far refused to reinstate them.

Leavitt's no-show at the WHCA dinner also signals a deeper alignment with Trump's long-running campaign against what he calls the 'fake news media.' 

Her decision mirrors Trump's refusal to attend the event during his first presidency. 

The first time Trump refused to attend in 2017 was a dramatic departure from presidents who have historically used the night to reaffirm democratic values and even showing they can make and take a joke poking fun at their own foibles.

Trump's last appearance at the WHCA dinner was in 2015 as a private citizen, when he and Melania Trump were photographed at the glitzy event. 

Ever since taking office Trump has treated the press as a political enemy describing them as 'an enemy of the people'.

This year's dinner was already poised for tension, as comedian Amber Ruffin, known for her scathing humor and left-leaning commentary, was tapped to headline.

'No one wants him there,' Ruffin said bluntly in a CNN interview. 'But he should go. He's missing out on one of the cool things about being president.'

Leavitt had previously hinted that she was still weighing up whether to attend, noting how Ruffin was an 'interesting choice' and suggesting she would 'talk to the boss.' 

Meanwhile, the WHCA, which relies on the dinner as its primary source of revenue, faces a fundamental challenge: how to function as an independent watchdog when the president's team refuses to engage — and actively undermines its role.