News org laughs off invite to 'wannabe tyrant' Trump's dinner

Zeteo editors made clear that they will not be attending the Saturday White House Correspondents’ Dinner. They were equally vocal about their reasons.

“We will not join our media colleagues in partying with Donald Trump, an authoritarian who seeks to curtail the First Amendment and criminalize journalism, who puts masked agents on the street to racially profile and kidnap people and kill people, who jails foreign students for their pro-Palestine speech, who seeks to denaturalize US citizens, who has made it US policy to summarily execute people at sea, who is massacring children and threatening the global economy with his disastrous war in Iran,” said editors.

“There is no reason to don a tuxedo and celebrate this racist wannabe tyrant,” they added, pointing out that Trump and his Justice Department have already privately discussed using the Espionage Act to bring criminal charges against reporters.

“There is nothing to be gained by showing up to the dinner with the hopes of offering any small act of protest,” said editors. “Members of the industry should skip the event instead, and refuse to provide a televised backdrop for Trump’s vitriol and hate.”

Zeteo founders say they would prefer to focus on “getting under” Trump’s skin, and that is why the Trump White House keeps attacking the publication, and its founder Mehdi Hasan.

“It’s why the White House has repeatedly refused to grant press credentials to our journalists that would allow our team to ask tough questions of the president and his propagandists,” said editors.

Zeteo writer Asawin Suebsaeng told readers earlier this week that he personally would not be attending the event “because I have a soul and would like to keep it.”

Reports suggest Trump intends to use the event, which raises money for freedom of speech issues, as a soundboard to vent his personal grievances against the press.

“F—— that,” said Suebsaeng. “I’d rather waterboard myself than put on a tuxedo and be used as a prop in a fascist game show host’s ritual of self-love and smug hostility.”

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