ASSHOLE of the Year!!

​

The Forgotten Candle

I came away from Donald Trump’s appearance at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner with one overriding thought.

What an asshole.

Trump looked like a forgotten orange candle left burning too long on a dresser, softening, sagging, slowly melting into itself. There was no presidential presence, no dignity, no humility, no recognition that he was standing before the very people charged with documenting history in real time. There was only vanity. Endless vanity. A man who has mistaken attention for respect, applause for legitimacy, and grievance for governing. Even he seemed to realize he was bombing. After one of his tired jokes collapsed into silence, he admitted it was a “fricking stupid speech.” On that rare occasion, I found myself in complete agreement with the President of the United States.

And then there was Karoline Leavitt, who every single day has walked to the podium with an air of practiced superiority, treating legitimate questions from journalists as inconveniences rather than constitutional necessities. She doesn’t simply defend an administration. She defends distortions, dismisses facts, belittles reporters, and packages contempt as confidence. Day after day she serves as the smiling public face of an administration that has transformed lying into communications strategy and hostility toward the press into official policy. She doesn’t appear burdened by it. She appears to enjoy it.

As I watched this spectacle unfold, I kept asking myself the same question over and over again. Why was he there? More importantly, why was he invited? What exactly possesses an organization dedicated to defending the First Amendment to hand its most prominent stage to the man who has spent nearly a decade calling journalists “the enemy of the people,” threatening television networks with the loss of their broadcast licenses, suing newspapers into submission, driving respected news organizations from the White House press pool, subpoenaing reporters, and openly arguing that journalists themselves should become investigative targets whenever his administration springs another leak? At what point does extending an invitation cease being an act of professionalism and become an act of institutional surrender?

The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is supposed to celebrate the First Amendment. It is supposed to honor the uncomfortable but indispensable relationship between a free press and those in power. Instead, this evening became little more than another MAGA rally dressed up in tuxedos and evening gowns. Trump wandered through more than an hour of recycled grievances, childish nicknames, personal insults, stale campaign material, and bitter attacks directed at journalists who were sitting only a few feet away. He mocked Kaitlan Collins. He ridiculed political opponents’ appearances. He compared reporters to social media personalities. He mocked celebrities. He insulted members of Congress. He fantasized about White House UFC fights. He slipped a “Trump 2028” hat onto his head as though constitutional term limits were just another punchline. It wasn’t comedy. It wasn’t satire. It was narcissism with a microphone.

The room didn’t laugh much because there wasn’t much to laugh about. Most people simply stared. A few nervous chuckles escaped here and there, but awkward silence became the dominant soundtrack of the evening. Watching reporters politely endure insult after insult from a president who has spent years trying to delegitimize their profession felt less like witnessing a celebration of journalism than watching an institution negotiate with its own abuser.

I found myself thinking that perhaps the profession has reached the point where it should simply stop showing up. Trump feeds on attention the way a wildfire feeds on dry timber. Every invitation becomes another opportunity to humiliate the very people extending it. Every camera becomes oxygen for his ego. Every appearance reinforces the illusion that this relationship is somehow normal when nothing about it is normal. Journalism does not exist to provide scenery for authoritarian theatrics. A free press exists to hold power accountable, not to applaud politely while power ridicules it from center stage.

What disturbed me most, however, wasn’t what Trump said. It was what he never said.

An hour of insults.

An hour of grievance.

An hour of self-promotion.

Yet scarcely a meaningful acknowledgment of the American service members who have died in his war with Iran.

The administration has publicly acknowledged eighteen American military deaths in the conflict. Even that number has shifted as casualty reporting has changed, while information about the broader human toll has often been slow to emerge. What is beyond dispute is that the number of wounded continues to rise, civilians continue to die, families continue receiving unimaginable phone calls, and this unnecessary war continues extracting a heavier price with each passing week. Every casualty represents a son. A daughter. A husband. A wife. A parent. Every folded flag leaves behind an empty chair that will never again be filled.

And yet there sat Donald Trump, basking beneath crystal chandeliers, complaining about reporters, reminiscing about owning the ballroom, joking about beef tenderloin and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running over the cow that supplied the dinner, while barely pausing to acknowledge the Americans who have paid for his decisions with their lives.

That omission told me everything.

The presidency is, above all else, a moral office. Every occupant eventually reveals what he values most. Some reveal compassion. Some reveal humility. Some reveal courage under extraordinary pressure.

Donald Trump revealed Donald Trump.

His priorities were unmistakable. The dead weren’t the story. Their grieving families weren’t the story. The wounded weren’t the story. The First Amendment wasn’t the story. The journalists sitting before him weren’t the story.

He was.

Always him.

As I watched him stumble through another rambling hour of insults, I couldn’t help remembering that this is the same man who dismissed captured American service members as “losers,” questioned the heroism of John McCain because he had been captured, publicly disparaged Gold Star families, and referred to America’s war dead as “suckers.” Perhaps I should not have been surprised that eighteen officially acknowledged American deaths, and the many more wounded in a war whose human cost continues to escalate, barely registered in his remarks. The pattern isn’t new. It is simply becoming impossible to ignore.

The bitter irony of the evening was impossible to escape. A dinner intended to celebrate the First Amendment featured a president who has spent years attacking it. Journalists applauded award winners whose reporting had earned them lawsuits, subpoenas, threats, professional retaliation, and even the relocation of family members because of intimidation. They celebrated courage while sitting only feet away from the man responsible for much of the hostility directed at them. If that contradiction didn’t make everyone in the room uncomfortable, it should have.

As I turned off the television, I couldn’t shake the image that had stayed with me all night. Donald Trump didn’t look powerful. He looked exactly like that forgotten orange candle left burning on a dresser, softened by its own heat, sagging beneath its own weight, slowly melting into itself. The tragedy is that candles usually consume only themselves as they burn. Donald Trump has spent years consuming institutions instead: the presidency, public trust, the military’s sacrifice, the First Amendment, and now even the White House Correspondents’ Dinner itself.

The wax isn’t the only thing melting.

So are the democratic norms that far too many people, including too many in that ballroom, continue pretending are still intact.

Michael Jochum

Not Just a Drummer: Reflections on Art, Music, Politics, Dogs, and the Human Condition