White House Correspondents' Association Dinner
What this video covers
C-SPAN’s full five-hour broadcast of the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton. Kennedy’s own appearance comes a few minutes in, in a brief live red-carpet interview in which he predicts President Trump’s performance and defends his record with the press. The broadcast was then overtaken by events: mid-dinner, loud noises that attendees mistook for gunshots sent guests under tables, the President was removed from the ballroom, the dinner ended without his speech, and C-SPAN filled the remaining hours with live reporting on the security scare before replaying Trump’s press conference about it.
Key points
- On the red carpet, C-SPAN asks what Kennedy is anticipating. “I am anticipating that the President is going to put on a big performance and probably offend some people in the press,” Kennedy says — and, asked if that is a good thing, he answers that it is: “The President is very funny, and historically there has been a lot of comedy at this event. I hope there are some good feelings that come from it and people can take a joke.”
- Asked what the evening means given his family legacy at the intersection of the presidency and the press, Kennedy claims Trump “has been more open toward the press in this administration than any administration in history. He literally gives a press conference every day. He set every record for transparency ever in history.” He adds: “He’s not scared of the press… You should appreciate him — the transparency and accessibility he has given to the press is unprecedented.”
- The interview stays light: asked how much the woman accompanying him watches C-SPAN, Kennedy says he doesn’t know; she tells C-SPAN she is wearing Alex Perry before the hosts move on.
- C-SPAN’s panel notes that before the program, protesters had gotten onto the guest red carpet, where two protesters held signs reading “Arrest Pete Hegseth” and yelled for an extended period before being removed.
- During the dinner, C-SPAN’s coverage shifts to a security scare: an attendee phoning in from the ballroom reports that many guests had been under tables and that “the President has been removed from the room,” amid loud noises whose nature was unclear; guests were subsequently escorted out of the ballroom, and law enforcement closed off the area around the Hilton.
- Trump did not return to the podium — C-SPAN notes the presidential seal being removed from it — and the network closes its coverage by replaying the President’s press conference from roughly ninety minutes after the incident, in which Trump calls what happened “very unexpected” and praises the Secret Service and law enforcement response at an event “dedicated to freedom of speech.”