Screenshot via C-SPAN/Snapstream Friday marked the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD) following the April 25 dinner being postponed following another alleged deranged leftist who sought to assassinate President Trump.With a third of the original attendance and a different venue, the show went on with all of the awards for anti-Trump screeds, remarks by the President, and outgoing White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) President Weijia Jiang of CBS News, and a mind-bending performance from Oz Perlman.Given the nearly five-hour runtime from Hail to the Chief to the end of Perlman’s routine, let’s walk through just a few moments and takeaways.Jiang continued to exude the unity she displayed in April and showed Friday why we would be hard-pressed to find a more level-headed and ego-free WHCA president. As we’ll see, she hit the right points about a reality all too ignored by liberal, elite media: The First Amendment applies to all of us.Her pre-dinner remarks were laudatory of the President for coming, and praising both Trump and her fellow journalists for how they handled the traumatic first go-around. She argued Trump was right to call the unity following the attack “a very beautiful thing to see.” WATCH: CBS’s @Weijia Jiang’s opening remarks at the rescheduled #WHCD: “Good evening, everybody. Let's try this again. Because the one thing about this press corps is we always have a follow-up. Welcome to the 2026 White House Correspondents' Dinner, a tradition spanning more… pic.twitter.com/hqR5BErBIR— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 “Three months later, it still is. Whatever may divide us, we stand together against political violence. An assassination attempt on our President is an attack on democracy itself. Tonight – tonight, our message is this: We are back. We will not be intimidated. We refuse to let an act of violence have the final word,” she added.After dinner, she noted Calvin Coolidge was the first President to attend the WHCD in 1924, offered some thank yous, and reiterated her belief that President Trump and the press, in theory, share the same mission, and “duty to serve the American people.”This went into a moving video about April’s shooting from Jiang’s colleague, CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil:  .@CBSEveningNews anchor @TonyDokoupil voicing #WHCD video about the shooting derailing the event in April…DOKOUPIL: The White House Correspondents Dinner was to be a night celebrating the First Amendment. and 250 years of surviving, thriving, and overcoming our nation's many… pic.twitter.com/ub0xaOFDHw— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 The next portion was bizarre as an AI James Madison appeared and, in a shot at Trump, reminded those there that while “you’re now worried about tweets, algorithms, and people yelling on television,” no one should be able to change “the rule” that “[t]he government doesn’t get to shut the press up, not when it’s wrong, not when it’s annoying and not when it’s asking uncomfortable questions.” WATCH: James Madison impersonator appears in a video at the #WHCD to lecture the President about the First Amendment…“Hello from 1789. I'm James Madison. Yes, that James Madison. I wrote the First Amendment. At the time, we worried a king might control the press. Turns out,… pic.twitter.com/08dDNpzclZ— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 How stunning and brave.The AI Madison reappeared later after a package from current and former White House reporters that, while it included a few of our conservative friends in the press corps, it included former and disgraced retired journalists: LOL: A #WHCD love letter to the President spotlights Dan Rather questioning Richard Nixon (R), Sam Donaldson going after Ronald Reagan (R), and Helen Thomas grilling George W. Bush (R).Only then did it throw in Major Garrett vs. Obama on a hostage deal.Notice a pattern? pic.twitter.com/sXhPfIw1N6— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 Moving to the speeches and awards, new WHCA President Jacqui Heinrich of Fox News praised Jiang, denounced the attempt on the President’s life as “a sobering reminder that democracy is not immune to violence, and the freedoms that we cherish can never be taken for granted,” said “[p]olitical violence must have no home in America,” and delivered an award to the staff of the Washington Hilton. Fox’s @JacquiHeinrich: “The attempt on President Trump’s life last April was a sobering reminder that democracy is not immune to violence, and the freedoms that we cherish can never be taken for granted. Political violence must have no home in America. [APPLAUSE] And journalism… pic.twitter.com/lB5Z06xrYr— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 After Jiang honored law enforcement serving back in April and recognizing WHCA scholarship recipients, it was time for the WHCA’s awards, read out by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. We covered it when they were announced, noting five of the six were for reporting hammering Trump, something we never saw of President Biden until the 2025 show (based on reporting from 2024).Blitzer handed them out to The Wall Street Journal’s Josh Dawsey (Trump personnel), the Associated Press’s Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller (Trump purging National Security Council staff), CNN’s Kaitlan Collins (Trump vs. Zelenskyy), Getty Images (Trump appearing uninterested in a man who passed out), The Journal again (Trump and Jeffrey Epstein), and The New York Times’s Tyler Pager (slew of negative headlines).None of those recipients spoke, but one who did – retired AP photojournalist Susan Walsh for the Dunnigan Payne Award for Lifetime Achievement – did, and she closed with a veiled shot at Trump: “[T]o all the journalists out there who are working incredibly hard to report the truth, despite access issues, insults, and subpoenas. Keep it up. Your work matters and we need you now more than ever.”Jiang’s keynote was the only thing standing between the world and the President’s address, but she took a candid stroll down memory lane to what would probably surprise a lot of people about her upbringing as a first-generation American in rural West Virginia where her parents ran a Chinese restaurant: CBS’s @Weijia Jiang at the #WHCD on her upbringing in rural WV: “I’ve been thinking a lot about my own journey to this podium tonight. I grew up in rural West Virginia, in a town at the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, a town called Buchanan, Population 5,500. Those images… pic.twitter.com/uKDoXrPnNX— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 She next delivered some stunning, firmly pro-America, and welcome remarks about the First Amendment as something for “all Americans” and that the press is “not special,” so “[w]e cannot demand accountability without practicing it” by taking in outside criticism: Truly refreshing comments from CBS’s @Weijia Jiang at the #WHCD...“Because when this is your home, you inherit something remarkable, the protections in the First Amendment, free religion, free speech, free press, free assembly, free petition. This fundamental right belongs to… pic.twitter.com/LoHk0BqoMy— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 The President would take up just over the next hour, but started on a humorous note, quipping “this has not been an easy evening for him,” although “it’s great to be back at a place that I know very well because I built it” in his former hotel (now the Waldorf Astoria). Trump’s first lines at the #WHCD. Funniest President ever.“Wow, that was very beautiful, but this has not been an easy evening, all these awards. Do I have a say in those awards or those awards? but it’s great to be back at a place that I know very well because I built it. And… pic.twitter.com/Tc6V8n0XQq— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 Trump delivered the first of what would be multiple jokes about running for an (unconstitutional) third term: Trump on #WHCD being postponed from April: “I think a lot was learned from that evening, tremendous amount was learned about security and about other things, the dangers of what we all do. But just like my presidency, the second time is always better. It’s always better. And the… pic.twitter.com/vLFWD50UAz— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 Also early in the speech and just prior to a denouncement of political violence, Trump had a quip about Nicki Minaj as having been there for the ill-fated first dinner: Trump: “But after hearing the gunshots, many people yelled, get down, get down. which caused Nicki Minaj to start twerking. Do you believe it? Get down. She’s the only one that really understood what that meant. Quite an evening.” pic.twitter.com/VsTLlzSvt6— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 Skipping ahead, he paid tribute to both Jiang and Heinrich, making particular reference to the latter’s new marriage to Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), a moderate Republican: Trump on Fox’s @JacquiHeinrich: “Let me also thank the incoming president of the Correspondents’ Association, Jacqui Heinrich. She could be very tough as a reporter, I will tell you. She can be nasty. She looks so beautiful, but she can be so nasty. How could that happen? But she… pic.twitter.com/wMwBqQ78AL— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 Trump alluded to the work of the Media Research Center when talking about Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt: WATCH: President Trump cites the MRC’s work at the #WHCD on negative coverage of his presidency on ABC, CBS, and NBC...“Karoline may have one of the hardest jobs in the White House. She has to deal with all of you. all of the time, and you can be very difficult. You can be… pic.twitter.com/VqlfUuygn6— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 Starting with a lengthy riff about the incoming White House Ballroom, the rest of the speech dragged with multiple asides and riffs – otherwise known as The Weave – about current events that would normally be deployed at campaign rallies.One notable and genuine zinger was this one about the evening’s dinner and Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:            TWEET: https://x.com/CurtisHouck/status/2080842639146987618The next series of jokes was proposing a follow-up to UFC 250 at the White House, which would star “Sloppy Chris Christie” vs. Jerry Nadler, AOC vs. a foreign policy question, and Anderson Cooper vs. Lawrence O’Donnell:            TWEET: https://x.com/CurtisHouck/status/2080845208665657536Trump had brutal and similar missives to hurl at deranged leftists Jimmy Kimmel, “sick old woman” Rosie O’Donnell, and “pencil neck” Adam Schiff:            TWEET: https://x.com/CurtisHouck/status/2080846842560987497Without a doubt, Trump’s most controversial moment of the night came shortly thereafter when, after a benign jab at the Oscars hemorrhaging ratings for being woke, he not only revisited his observation that CNN’s Collins doesn’t smile, but argued her doppelgänger is trans actor Dylan Mulvaney: Trump on the Oscars, Kaitlan Collins, Dylan Mulvaney, Josh Dawsey, and Jake Tapper…“But of course, this evening, it’s really all about the fake news media, and you’re handling of prizes, writing, and producing, and performing made-up stories like the Academy Awards. You know,… pic.twitter.com/aQjcxzqB2U— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026  Collins’s CNN colleague Jake Tapper was also called out: President Donald Trump from the TOP ROPE: “Some people say that Jake Tapper is a great investigative reporter in DC. That's why after moderating our debate, it only took him one year to break the story that Joe Biden might possibly have suffered from cognitive decline.”Then… pic.twitter.com/kRftLSFrHi— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) July 25, 2026 The speech continued on with rehashes of past callouts to far-left elected Democrats, so it was surprising when this one about Bari Weiss and CBS News made its way in that, if a Democrat President had said it, the room would have been howling in laughter: Trump with a legitimately great joke about CBS News under Bari Weiss and Iran…“While I have all of the press here in one place, I have to say that we’re having an amazing load of accomplishments that the media never talks about, for example, under my administration, a once… pic.twitter.com/kx6UA25fxC— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 His concluding remarks ran for nearly seven minutes, starting with a concession that “for all of the trouble that you give me, you give me a lot of trouble, a lot of heartache, I hope all of you know that I believe in the free press more than anyone in this room does. Ehh, maybe not quite. But that’s why I’m proud to be the most open and transparent President in history.” Trump’s closing remarks at the #WHCD…“But for all of the trouble that you give me, you give me a lot of trouble, a lot of heartache. I hope all of you know that I believe in the free press more than anyone in this room does. Ehh, maybe not quite. But that’s why I’m proud to be… pic.twitter.com/oXHzcGwSY3— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 25, 2026 There was a reality check for the press whenever he’s gone: “[Y]ou people have no idea how lucky you are. When I’m gone, you’re all going to be broke. Your business model is going to be finished. No, it’s true. When I’m not around, you’re gonna be broke. There’s not going to be anybody to report on. Nobody gives a damn about anybody else.”Once he trolled the liberal journalists one last time with talk about third and fourth terms, he declared Friday “an interest evening” because “I didn’t really know what to expect, and it’s far worse than I actually thought, but if you want to know that, but I didn’t know exactly what to expect, and I’ve made a lot of friends tonight.”Here was how he brought it home following one last Weave:I just want to say it is a room I have tremendous respect for the people in this room. Sometimes I don’t feel you treat me fair, or maybe you do. I don’t know. I don’t feel that, but sometimes you treat me very fairly, and I have a lot of respect for your profession, your profession’s amazing, and I just want to thank you for having me, and it’s been fun, and I’ve met a lot of great people and, you know, I used an expression, I’ve used it right from the beginning. I did this for one reason, to make America great again, and that’s what’s happening right before your very eyes. We have made America great again. It’s going to get a lot greater. So, thank you all very much. It’s an honor to be with you. Thank you. Thank you very much.Poor Perlman had to follow a long, winding set of Trump remarks, but he had some spell-binding moments, including this exchange at the end with acting Attorney General Todd Blanche: MUST WATCH: Oz the Mentalist pulls off an absolutely next-level mind-reading stunt, enlisting the help of Acting AG Todd Blanche and Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz at the WHCA Dinner.Oz first has Blanche commit a "federal offense" by signing a $20 bill, then has him fold it… pic.twitter.com/6yqBo27XdU— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 25, 2026 Here was the full show, beginning with guessing dream vacation destinations of random audience members that included Fox’s David Spunt and Reuters’s Steve Holland. Keep your eyes peeled for others to surface, including Fox’s Kevin Corke and State Department official Erin Scavino: Oz Pearlman full mentalist performance at White House Correspondents' Dinner @USATODAY pic.twitter.com/sfdYLNwf2m— liten drage (@DrageLiten) July 25, 2026 To see a partial transcript of the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, part 2, click here.