Jon Stewart urges end to White House Correspondents Dinner

Comedian Jon Stewart has called for the White House Correspondents Dinner to be permanently canceled following President Donald Trump's widely criticized performance at the rescheduled event last Friday. On his Comedy Central program "The Daily Show" on Monday, Stewart argued that the annual dinner, which celebrates the First Amendment, fundamentally compromises the press's role by fostering an inappropriately cozy relationship with the officials it covers.

The dinner, originally scheduled for April, was postponed after a gunman fired shots inside the Washington Hilton. President Trump delivered a 65-minute speech that veered between policy rants and attempted comedy, targeting figures including CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Senator Adam Schiff. Stewart dissected the performance, highlighting fundamental flaws in Trump's comedic delivery. He noted the president took four minutes to introduce the first joke within a premise, changed the target of jokes midway through, and delivered lines as if reading them for the first time.

Stewart emphasized that traditional roasts rely on an underlying affection, which was absent. "Saying you hate someone...