Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard editor at large, said he completely gets why President Donald Trump is steering clear of the White House Correspondents' Dinner — because he himself has refused to go to what he calls a "prom for nerds" for the past decade.
"I, myself, have been boycotting it for about 10 years," Kristol told Newsmax TV's "The Steve Malzberg Show." "Not really boycotting, I just don't like going. So, I don't go. I'm glad to have him come aboard.
"My agenda here, the Kristol boycott of the White House Correspondents' Dinner, has been joined by Donald Trump. Very nice. Trump reaching across the aisle to me. That was good of him."
Over the weekend, Trump, who calls the press "the enemy of the people," announced he will not attend the April 29 bash in which reporters and politicians cheekily roast each other.
"I think it's . . . kind of naive of us to think that we can all walk into a room for a couple of hours and pretend that some of that tension isn't there," White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Sunday's ABC News' "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos.
And just why is Kristol, who has not always seen eye-to-eye with Trump, not going to the April 29 gala either?
"It's become such a ridiculous show – and sort of prom for nerds, they say – how one dresses up and then looking, oohing and ahhing at the Hollywood types," he explained to Malzberg.
"There once really was a dinner for White House correspondents at the time, and [you] socialize with people who worked at the White House, and the administration who normally you see as business contacts.
"[Now] the whole thing's staged, and the president gives his jokes that someone wrote for him. I don't know, [it’s] just not worth it."
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