WASHINGTON – Expanding the boycott of an annual press gathering, White House aides told staff members Tuesday that President Donald Trump doesn't want them to attend Saturday night's White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

Trump himself said earlier this month he would not be going to the dinner, calling it "too negative" and "I like positive things;" instead, the president will host a political campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisc., a pivotal state in the 2020 presidential election.

Aides, some of whom attended last year's event, were told at a staff meeting that Trump did not want them to go, officials said.

It appears that officials will heed the president's request.

"The President and members of his administration will not attend the White House Correspondents' Dinner this year," the White House said in a written statement issued later in the day.

Olivier Knox, president of the White House Correspondents' Association, said of the boycott: "We’re looking forward to an enjoyable evening of celebrating the First Amendment and great journalists past, present, and future."

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The decision came the same morning that Trump posted a number of tweets attacking the media, particularly MSNBC's Morning Joe to The New York Times.

"I wonder if the New York Times will apologize to me a second time, as they did after the 2016 Election," Trump said in one tweet. "But this one will have to be a far bigger & better apology. On this one they will have to get down on their knees & beg for forgiveness-they are truly the Enemy of the People!"

The Times has never apologized to Trump for its coverage of the president.

Trump also did not attend the dinner during his first two years in office. He is the first president to intentionally skip it since Jimmy Carter in 1980.

President Ronald Reagan did not personally attend the dinner in 1981 – he was recovering from an assassination attempt – but he did phone in some remarks to the crowd.

After last year's White House Correspondents' Association dinner, Trump and other administration officials criticized comedian Michelle Wolf for a barbed monologue that included attacks on White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.

There will be no comedian this year; instead, the association invited presidential historian Ron Chernow to speak.

Before Trump, the dinner traditionally featured comics who made fun of the president – and other politicians – and offered presidents the chance to retaliate with comedy routines of their own.

Perhaps most famously, in 2011, President Barack Obama mocked an audience member who had questioned his U.S. citizenship and was contemplating a campaign against him.

That dinner guest? Donald J. Trump.

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