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Ron Chernow to speak at White House correspondents’ dinner
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House Correspondents’ Association an- nounced Monday that Pulitzer Prize-win- ning author Ron Chernow will address its annual dinner next year, breaking from its tradition of featuring an entertainer following the pushback over comedian Michelle Wolf ’s sharply anti-Trump per- formance last time.
At a time of increasingly tense relations between President Donald Trump and the White House press corps, Chernow said the association asked him to “make the case for the First Amendment and I am happy to oblige.” He’ll also share his per- spective on American politics and history at the April 27 event in Washington, said Olivier Knox, the association’s president.
“As we celebrate the importance of a free and independent news media to the health of the republic, I look forward to hearing Ron place this unusual moment
in the context of American history,” said Knox, chief Washington correspondent for SiriusXM.
Chernow said “freedom of the press is always a timely subject and this seems like the perfect moment to go back to basics.”
“My major worry these days is that we Americans will forget who we are as a people, and historians should serve as our chief custodians in preserving that rich storehouse of memory,” he said. “While
I have never been mistaken for a stand- up comedian, I promise that my history lesson won’t be dry.”
The shift away from a comic comes about six months after Wolf ’s nationally televised performance at the last dinner at- tracted attention for the negative barbs she directed at Trump, his daughter Ivanka,
press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and counselor Kellyanne Conway.
Reaction to the selection of Chernow, who in the past has criticized Trump, appeared largely positive on Twitter — but Wolf was an exception.
“The @whca are cowards,” she tweeted. “The media is complicit. And I couldn’t be prouder.”
Presidents traditionally attend the dinner. But Trump, who has a contentious relationship with journalists, skipped this year’s event for the second straight year. The White House has not said whether Trump will attend next year.
Like many of his fellow historians, Cher- now strongly opposed Trump’s election in 2016.
In a video message from that year, he spoke of being “disturbed” by the Trump campaign’s “absence of anything that is not a glorification of money and power and might,” adding that: “This emphasis has disturbing historical parallels.”
Chernow said he was especially con-
cerned by Trump’s disregard for American history. When the past becomes a “blank slate,” he said, “Donald Trump and any other demagogue can come along and write upon it whatever the hell he wants.”
Chernow won a Pulitzer Prize for his 2010 biography of George Washington. He is also the author of a widely acclaimed biography of Alexander Hamilton, which inspired the hit Broadway musical “Ham- ilton.”
The White House Correspondents’ Association was founded in 1914 to repre- sent the White House press corps. Dinner proceeds support scholarships for aspiring journalists, along with awards recognizing excellence in news coverage of the White House.
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AP National Writer Hillel Italie in New York contributed to this report.
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Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap
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