The White House Correspondents’ Dinner’s featured entertainer, Oz Pearlman, is worth spelunking down the YouTube rabbit hole to learn more about. Pearlman was born in Israel and worked briefly at Merrill Lynch before launching his second career as a mentalist. Currently, he’s the biggest, most sought-after mentalist on the planet.
If you didn’t know better, you’d swear he was psychic.
He “guessed” Joe Rogan’s ATM PIN in an interview. (Rogan’s shocked response: “Yeah… that’s weird. Yeah, I don’t like that.”) He’s baffled all the top news and entertainment TV shows. With clockwork precision, he plucks your deepest, darkest secrets straight out of your brain. It’s spooky: Like a scholar reads books, he reads minds.
Only he doesn’t: Pearlman openly admits he doesn’t have any psychic ability.
These are all tricks, based on his understanding of body language, psychology, and social behavior. There’s absolutely nothing “psychic” about him. But because he’s so thoroughly mastered his craft, you’d swear otherwise: Somehow, he’s always a step ahead.
Remind you of anyone?
Of course, it helps when your audience is predictable. The more predictable an audience, the easier it is to know what it’ll do next. If an audience is predictable enough, you could probably anticipate its every move.
Remind you of anyone else?
That’s our segue for today’s story: Saturday, April 25 is the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — which will be attended by, for his very first time as president, Donald J. Trump.
He attended a few dinners as a private citizen, most notably in 2011, when then-president Barack Obama taunted him from the podium. Since then, he hasn’t been back.
So many are wondering… why now? Why tonight?
The audience, after all — and the event itself — are predictably predictable. Every (non-Trumpian) year for the past 20 years, it’s been the exact same thing: If the president is a Democrat, he’s met with kid gloves and fawning praise. If he’s a Republican, he’s vilified, mocked, and personally insulted.
And if he’s Donald Trump — a.k.a. “literally Hitler” and the terrible, evil Orange Monster — he’s excoriated unmercifully. This is an audience that hates his frickin’ guts.
Yet now he’s attending.
Ex-emcee Stephen Colbert will be skipping the dinner. So is the HuffPost. Hundreds of journalists have signed an open letter, asking their colleagues to “forcefully demonstrate opposition to President Trump’s efforts to trample freedom of the press.” In their evenhanded, completely unbiased opinions, “these are not normal times, and this cannot be business as usual with the press standing up to applaud the man who attacks them on a daily basis.”
Many journalists will be wearing special hankies to protest the man they’re paid to cover (“without fear or favor!”). In the goofiest, lamest, most cringeworthy example of virtue-signaling yet… well, CNN’s Jake Tapper will explain:
On The Late Show With Stephen Colbert @JakeTapper pulls out a “freedom of the press” pocket square, says he’ll be wearing it to Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner because (as he points at it stuffed in his jacket pocket so its content is hidden) “there may be some… pic.twitter.com/IbJEczDf3k
— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) April 21, 2026
So why would Trump waste his time by spending an evening with a gaggle of journalists who plot his demise? Why would he help his enemies publicize their complaints, lies, and political grievances?
Some speculate that the choice of Oz Pearlman as emcee was a factor: He’s not a partisan comedian, but a mentalist — which minimizes chances it’ll devolve into yet another anti-Trump roast. That was surely something the White House considered before signing up: In 2006, Stephen Colbert’s vicious mockery of President George W. Bush skyrocketed his career. If you’re a comedian, attacking Republican presidents is very good for business.
Pearlman probably won’t do that. Being a partisan hack isn’t his business model.
But I suspect it’s more than just Pearlman’s inclusion. From the White House’s perspective, one of two things will likely happen tonight — and either outcome plays into the president’s hands.
First, there’s a chance it won’t be a complete and total anti-Trump rally. Not a GREAT chance, but a chance.
I’d give it a very low probability.
Because Pearlman won’t be the only speaker, and the ballroom will be filled with journalists, many of the biggest names in their industry. Like it or not, journalists have a vested interest in drawing attention to themselves: eyeballs = success.
Shamelessness is their signature trait. It’s what they do best.
All Trump can reasonably hope for is that their attacks will be muted. Because almost certainly, some left-wing journalist will seize the opportunity to give “literally Hitler” a piece of his mind.
But if the Trump-bashing is kept to a minimum, the president comes across as magnanimous, courageous, and confident, jumping right into the lion’s den and charming all the lions.
The second outcome expects things will go haywire: The media can’t resist the urge to draw its daggers and attack. Despite Pearlman emceeing the event, one way or another, left-wing agitators will hijack the dinner.
This is, I suspect, what President Trump is counting on.
Nothing rallies a people, a party, and/or a movement like a common enemy. Furthermore, if you’re a Republican, few institutions are more detestable than the mainstream media.
I think Trump wants the media to make jackarses of themselves and attack him tonight — so he’ll have an excuse to counterpunch ‘em right back!
Because it would be an excellent opportunity to unite Red America by reminding us who our real enemies are: a dishonest media that propagandizes anti-Americanism, secularism, and deep state leftism.
Expecting D.C.’s journalists to act “fair and balanced” is a fool’s errand. Decades of experience virtually guarantees it won’t happen. Which means, tonight’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner is obviously an ambush — so why the heck is Trump walking into it?
Most likely explanation: He’s planning an ambush of his own.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First. It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battle lines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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