President Donald Trump, who was roasted by former President Barack Obama at the 2011 dinner, also skipped the event last year. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo Trump to skip White House Correspondents' Dinner again

President Donald Trump will again skip the White House Correspondents’ Dinner this year, and will send his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, instead.

"The White House has informed us that the president does not plan to participate in this year's dinner but that he will actively encourage members of the executive branch to attend and join us as we celebrate the First Amendment,” White House Correspondents’ Association President Margaret Talev said in a statement on Friday.


"In keeping with tradition, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders also will represent the administration at the head table," Talev added about the April 28 dinner.

Trump, who was roasted by former President Barack Obama at the 2011 dinner, also skipped the event last year. But Talev said she was heartened by what could be an increase in the administration's involvement this time around.

“The message underscoring it is one of participation this year, and I think that’s a good thing," she said Friday, speaking at a symposium on the First Amendment at the National Press Club. “There is something a little bit different about their posture, the administration's posture this year — the White House telling us that while the president himself doesn't feel comfortable attending this year, he is going to actively encourage his Cabinet, his advisers, the executive branch who have received invitations to attend that dinner.”

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The dinner later this month will honor CNN, a favorite target of the president’s frequent accusations of “fake news.” The network won the WHCA’s Merriman Smith Award in the broadcast category for its January 2017 report on how the intelligence community believed Russia had compromising information on Trump.

That CNN reporting precipitated the full publishing by Buzzfeed of the opposition research “dossier” that has become the focus of partisan debate on cable networks and in congressional committee rooms amid special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Lester Holt of NBC News will receive an honorable mention recognition in that same category for his interview with Trump last year, in which Holt “had the embattled leader admit — on camera — that he did in fact fire former FBI Director James Comey because of his investigation into Russian involvement into the 2016 election,” according to the judges.

And a month after Trump described New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman on Twitter as a “Hillary flunky” who "knows nothing about me," she will be honored with the Aldo Beckman Award for showing “her deep understanding of what makes President Trump tick,” the judges said.

Among the other reporting that earned journalists awards this year were stories on former White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s resignation, former HHS Secretary Tom Price's use of taxpayer-funded private aircraft, and Trump’s firing of all members of his AIDS advisory committee.

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In lieu of attending last year’s dinner, Trump headlined a concurrent rally in Harrisburg, Pa., where he mocked the “Hollywood actors and Washington media” who were “consoling each other" in a hotel ballroom. Trump did show up for last month’s Gridiron Dinner, a more intimate get-together of journalists where the president gets lampooned, but photo and video coverage isn’t allowed.

It wasn’t the first time Trump has taken a public ribbing before Washington’s media and political elite. He was the subject of many barbs at the 2011 WHCA dinner, where Obama seized upon the occasion to hit back at Trump for frothing up unsubstantiated claims that Obama was born in Kenya.

“I know that he’s taken some flack lately. No one is prouder to put this birth-certificate matter to rest than the Donald,” Obama said. “And that’s because he can finally get back to the issues that matter, like: ‘Did we fake the moon landing?’ ‘What really happened in Roswell?’ And, ‘Where are Biggie and Tupac?’”

Obama also mocked Trump’s “credentials and breadth of experience,” including his firing of Gary Busey on “The Celebrity Apprentice.”

“These are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night,” Obama jabbed.

Michelle Wolf, a correspondent on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” will be the featured entertainer at this year’s dinner.