A Very Washington Red Carpet for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner: Photos

The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington had fewer big-name celebrity guests than it did during the Biden presidency, when Scarlett Johansson, Jon Hamm and Sean Penn mixed with journalists and politicians. But on Saturday a red carpet was rolled out nonetheless.

President Trump, who skipped the annual black tie dinner during his first term, made no plan to attend the gathering before leaving Washington to attend the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome.

An appearance by the comedian Amber Ruffin, who had been booked as the host, was scrapped last month “to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division,” as the association’s president, Eugene Daniels, put it in a letter to members.

Here’s how the people who attended the event — known as “nerd prom” in the capital — looked when they arrived at the Washington Hilton Hotel.