The White House Correspondents' Dinner's break from comedians turned out to be short-lived.
Kenan Thompson will host the 2020 White House Correspondents' Dinner in April, where Hasan Minhaj will perform as the featured entertainer, the White House Correspondents' Association announced Tuesday.
This is a pivot back to the show's regularly scheduled programming of having a comedian perform at the yearly gathering of journalists. Last year, in a break from this tradition, the featured speaker was instead historian Ron Chernow.
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The year before, comedian Michelle Wolf had headlined and sparked some outrage with her roast, as when she joked that then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders "burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye." The New York Times reports Chernow's appearance in 2019 "was a direct consequence" of Wolf's controversial performance.
But the White House Correspondents' Association is bringing back the comedy this year, with Minhaj returning after performing the year before Wolf. WHCA President Jonathan Karl said on Tuesday per the Times, "I'd argue that humor is more important now than ever."
Still, although it had been a tradition for sitting presidents to attend the White House Correspondents' Dinner, it seems unlikely that Trump will go in April after skipping the event every year of his presidency so far. Last year, Trump briefly teased that he could potentially attend for the first time, only to not do so, calling the event "negative" and "boring."
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