How Trump Revealed the Weakness That Will Be His Undoing

I have covered Donald Trump’s second term since the day he was inaugurated, and each day, my faith in him and his administration has dwindled a little more.

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As a seasoned journalist, I have usually been able to find the positive in the most heinous situations. The courageous under fire, the unexpected hospitality, the humor amid sorrow, the stoicism after the most extreme tragedy.

How, indeed, could such a small man be raised to such a big job?

I have been told by those who know him better that in person he exhibits deft and often charming command in his exclusion of all around a table. A few friends of his I’ve spoken to say he can show flashes of personable allure betwixt the boasts and the boorishness.

But, honestly, I leave work in despair most evenings.

And then on Friday night, I saw some hope. Or at least I thought I did.

Like most of my colleagues in the media, I was expecting the same old Trump at the reconstituted White House Correspondents’ Dinner. I was at the dinner in April that was aborted after a gunman’s ill-fated assassination attempt.

It seemed a good sign that Trump wanted to give it another go, and the early signs looked promising. He was clearly catching up with some sleep when he first arrived. Maybe because it wasn’t about him.

But he came alive when the award ceremony began.

He shrugged. He smiled. He smirked. He spoke out of the side of his mouth to Karoline Leavitt with quips and asides that felt to the audience like he was genuinely enjoying himself.

Then he shook all the winners’ hands and told them well done.

And imagine: this respect to reporters from The Wall Street Journal who wrote about his birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein (and he sued!).

Also towards the photographer who caught him posing for the cameras, apparently unconcerned that a man was collapsing behind him in the Oval Office.

His nemesis from CNN that he routinely insults and demeans.

Trump threw up his hands in an unusually modest “aw shucks” manner, and looked out at the audience as if to ask them what he should do. But he was grinning.

He didn’t sit on his hands. He was—and I can hardly believe I am writing this—a good sport.

If there is one thing the president understands, it’s good TV. And he woke up from his table nap to realize that he was the star of some surprisingly hilarious television.

No matter that he was the butt of the joke. He was still the center of attention. And that’s what drives him.

Many have criticized the WHCA and the journalists who turned up to the pared-down dinner.

But the evening began with a video featuring journalists talking about the First Amendment, AI footage of Founding Father James Madison talking about “No Kings,” and footage of Trump calling the media “fake news.”

The elephant in the room was in full view of everyone present, including the president and many members of his Cabinet.

And the awards, handed out by CNN legend Wolf Blitzer, didn’t shy away from criticizing the president. They challenged his authority. They were personal.

“This has not been an easy evening, all these awards,” Trump laughed as he took the microphone. “A lot of people I like, some I don’t like at all,” he added. Importantly, he said he respected them.

If anything, Trump’s speech seemed rather tame. A little boring. The jokes were tired. I was thinking that his speechwriter should be fired.

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He targeted Bruce Springsteen (“Bored in the USA”), Chris Christie, Jane Fonda, Bette Midler, Adam Schiff, Rosie O’Donnell. Hardly cutting edge and not very cutting.

Still, it was within roasting territory. This was what a president was supposed to do at these things. Be a little rough. Have some fun.

I had been writing an op-ed suggesting that maybe, just maybe, Trump really did respect the First Amendment and realized that he needed the press as much as they needed him.

Maybe he did have some heart, after all.

But then it got dark. My essay’s thesis no longer held true. Metaphorically, I ripped it up. Deleted it.

The showman in Trump, perhaps, felt like he was losing the room with his lame jokes and needed to get their attention.

One by one, he went back and made unfair and sometimes despicable attacks on the reputations of the award-winning journalists he had shaken hands with and congratulated earlier in the evening.

He doubled back and blasted the award-winning team at The Wall Street Journal, singling out reporter Josh Dawsey, for writing about him. He even took a dig at CBS boss Bari Weiss, who has staked her reputation on siding with his administration.

The goodwill he had won with his benevolent behavior earlier had vanished.

Next, and worst, Trump spewed out vile insults at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who won an award for her coverage of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s calamitous visit to the Oval Office.

“I want to personally congratulate CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on receiving her award. It was all about me. It was a fake, she shouldn’t get the award, it was a fake. But I didn’t mind. I said, ‘Kaitlan, congratulations.’ But it was fake; there’s no question about it.

“But she’s a young, attractive woman,” Trump added. “She never smiles. I said, ‘Kaitlan, do you ever smile? Smile!’ You have a nice position; you’re at CNN fake news. You should be a happy person. So smile, Kaitlan! Just smile.”

Trump claimed Collins looked like transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, who triggered a Bud Light backlash a few years ago when she appeared in an ad for the popular beer.

“I thought Kaitlan had really made it big with a major new sponsorship,” Trump said. “But then I informed her that it wasn’t her on the Bud Light can, it was Dylan Mulvaney.”

It wasn’t at all funny. It was cruel and insulting to both Collins and Mulvaney.

He just couldn’t play nice. He felt he was threatened, and he stung like the scorpion he is. He simply couldn’t help himself.

Remember, this is the president who subpoenaed the families of New York Times journalists to try and discover the source of a story he didn’t want told.

And he is still suing the Journal for $20 billion despite the warm handshakes.

Press freedom is undeniably under threat from Trump and his acolytes like Stephen Miller.

But Trump needs to understand that he needs the press.

“The show must go on,” he told the audience, though he more than likely was directing that at himself.