While Los Angeles has the Oscars and New York has the Met Gala, Washington D.C. has the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) Dinner. The event, which dates back to 1921, is traditionally held on the last Saturday in April and raises funds for the WHCA, an organization of journalists that covers the White House and awards reporters and photographers for their intrepid work each year, as well as doling out scholarships to students in college journalism programs. And, like the Oscars or the Met Gala, star wattage helps light up the night.
Saturday evening saw Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost serve as co-host alongside President Joe Biden. Jost’s wife Scarlett Johansson, meanwhile, brought the fashion in a columnar Giorgio Armani gown in white, while Rachel Brosnahan wore a slick black satin gown from Jonathan Cohen and Sophia Bush (making a glamorous red-carpet debut with her girlfriend, former soccer pro Ashlyn Harris) wore Harbison. Elsewhere on the red carpet, Chris Pine, Keri Russell, Fran Drescher, Molly Ringwald, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and Rosario Dawson commingled with renowned journalists and broadcast journalists like Wolf Blitzer, Gayle King, and Dana Bash.
At around 6:30 p.m., as protestors of the Israel-Hamas War demonstrated outside, dinner guests started populating the sprawling ballroom at the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue. Inside, about 2,600 people would sit for dinner, with all eyes on the bride and groom-style table where Biden, Jost, Kamala Harris, and more VIPs sat—especially since the event was live-streamed by several news networks. Access to YouTube was really all you needed to feel like you, too, were in the room.
The Washington hobnobbing was on full display—Al Roker chatting it up with Senator Chuck Schumer; Harris catching up with Eugene Daniels (Politico’s White House correspondent and a self-proclaimed “walking Beyoncé encyclopedia”)—until it was time for the highlight of the night: Jost’s monologue. Each year, a comedian is invited to (lightly) roast the president, poke fun at Congress, and jest about current affairs, all in good fun; It’s not news, after all, that politicians have long provided the best material for comedians, something that Jost and his colleagues at SNL know all too well. But President Biden had some jokes, too: He addressed Lorne Michaels (who was also in attendance) about all the comedians who have portrayed him on television throughout the years, cracking, “Who said I don’t create jobs!”
Some of these moments, and more, are below in our roundup of the best photos from inside the 2024 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner.
