SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Thank you for being with us. In April, the White House Correspondents' Dinner came to an abrupt end. That dinner was interrupted when a gunman fired shots in the lobby of the Washington Hilton, and the president and other attendees had to be evacuated. The dinner was rescheduled for last night, and President Trump made jokes about bulletproof vests and said he was taking a softer tone with the media than he'd planned in his original speech.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Oh, that was going to be a doozy. I was so psyched. I was going to rip people. And I don't know. Just something changed, really, for the better. But I just wouldn't want to do that, but we'll do a little ripping, if you don't mind.
SIMON: How ripping did the president get? NPR's media correspondent David Folkenflik joins us. David, thanks so much for being with us.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: A pleasure.
SIMON: Let's just say there's often a rift, seemingly, between the White House and the media. Did they have a civil dinner?
FOLKENFLIK: I would say it was civil, but it was pretty surreal.
SIMON: You heard the president's speech. What do you take from it?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, first, let me say there were folks from NPR at the dinner, and I don't speak for NPR on this. I'm talking to you, Scott, as your media critic this morning. I would say, from a Trump standpoint, he was there, you know, at the lectern for over an hour, giving us a fair amount of one-liners going after his critics, the people who are his political opponents - Democrats, potential opponents for the for the next presidential race, people he sees as enemies, people in the press. You know, anytime the guy's in front of a microphone, he's going to indulge in these instincts.
From my perspective - somebody who thinks about comedy - he sounded a lot like Don Rickles channeled by Christopher Walken. But these were jokes, by and large, that weren't landing. I mean, people were sitting stone-faced in front of it. There wasn't a lot of mirth and laughter that night, even though it's supposed to be a night where, yes, he pokes fun at everybody else, but a president, any president, you know, goes after himself, as well, in the spirit of acknowledging the press' job is to kind of hold him accountable.
SIMON: And we should remind ourselves it wasn't just an occasion for comedy, or maybe we should phrase that attempts at comedy, because journalism awards were given at the dinner, often for tough coverage of the president and the administration. How did that go?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, look, you know, it was, as I said, surreal. You saw The Wall Street Journal being honored for stories breaking revelations of Trump's contribution to a birthday book for the disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein two decades ago. You know, that was the occasion for Trump to personally sue The Wall Street Journal in a multibillion-dollar suit over that story. He kind of grimaced and smirked and, nonetheless, shook the hands of the reporters.
Tyler Pager of The New York Times was honored for his reporting. The Department of Justice was just forced to withdraw subpoena to him and to colleagues for their testimony in front of a grand jury over a story that outraged the White House about security concerns within the government over the new Air Force One aircraft that was gifted to the president by the Qatari government. You know, this was an extraordinary juxtaposition of these incredible clash between these two institutions - The New York Times, just having prevailed in court and the president's administration.
SIMON: David, how would you characterize relations between Trump and the media?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, I mean, the president has used, in his return to power, the levers of government regulatory - the Justice Department - you know, a constriction of access to shut down the ability of the public to learn information about the government that does things with their tax dollars and in their name and of the press to report it independently. You know, he's privately sued, as I mentioned, The Wall Street Journal but also a number of TV news outlets and newspapers in what they call an attempt to chill free speech.
And taken together, seeing what happened last night, a president who is more historically going after the press than anyone we've seen in my lifetime, it says to me the White House Correspondents' Association hasn't adequately grapped with that. They think it's Washington as usual, and he knows it isn't.
SIMON: NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. David, thanks so much.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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