Trump Hijacks White House Correspondents’ Dinner Redo with Antigay Jabs, Anti-trans Mockery & Lies

This story originally appeared on The Advocate.President Donald Trump used the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Friday night to target two prominent gay journalists, mock transgender actress Dylan Mulvaney and deliver a sprawling rally-style address before hundreds of members of the press.Trump made an apparent antigay insinuation about CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, called independent journalist Don Lemon “the dumbest man on television” and offered a strange comparison between CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins and Mulvaney.The speech moved from TikTok views to the UFC fight held on the White House South Lawn, from an attack on Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s weight to insults aimed at journalists and Democratic politicians. Trump complained about lawsuits, mocked Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico and spoke reverentially about the enormous ballroom he is constructing at the White House.At one point, the president discussed plans for what he described as a “drone port” atop the White House.The result was not so much a correspondents’ dinner routine as a Trump rally transported into a hotel ballroom, complete with the president’s familiar mixture of celebrity gossip, political grievances, personal attacks and praise for his own construction projects. There was little laughter in the room as the speech became harsher and more overtly political.Trump had warned at the beginning of his remarks that he had abandoned much of his prepared material and would instead deliver “a mix of things.”The setting was appropriately unusual. The dinner was held at the Waldorf Astoria Washington, blocks from the White House, in the Pennsylvania Avenue property that operated as the Trump International Hotel until the Trump Organization sold its lease rights in 2022.A jab at Anderson Cooper & Don LemonTrump’s attacks on LGBTQ+ figures began during a story about Cooper and MS NOW host Lawrence O’Donnell.“I like Anderson