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US President Donald Trump has once again passed up the opportunity to exchange barbs with the White House press corps, instead attending a rally in Michigan to drum up support for the Republican vote.
"While Washington, Michigan, was a big success, Washington, D.C., just didn't work," the President tweeted.
"Everyone is talking about the fact that the White House Correspondents Dinner was a very big, boring bust … the so-called comedian really 'bombed'."
Comedian Michelle Wolf, the after-dinner entertainment, was surprisingly racy for the venue, drawing laughs but also groans.
US media outlets described Wolf's performance as delivering a "harsh and risque" critique.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump rallied his supporters in Michigan to "continue to make America great again".
"You know, you may have heard I was invited to another event tonight, the White House correspondents' dinner," he told the crowd.
"But I'd much rather be in Washington, Michigan than in Washington, DC right now. That I can tell you."
He also reportedly compared the size of the crowd at the rally to that he imagined to be at the White House correspondents' dinner.
"By the way, you wanna see a lot of people? Go outside. We could have filled this place up probably five or six times," he said, according to the Washington Post.
Ahead of the rally Mr Trump said in a fundraising pitch that he had come up with something better than being stuck in a room, "with a bunch of fake news liberals who hate me."
He said he would rather spend the evening, "with my favourite deplorables."
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders took Mr Trump's place at the correspondents' dinner.
"This kind of forced reset has helped us return to what our mission always has been and really should be," president of the White House Correspondents' Association and senior White House correspondent for Bloomberg Margaret Talev told Variety.
"Which is a moment to raise awareness about the work that we are doing and to remind people of why the news matters and why all Americans benefit from the First Amendment."
Last year, Mr Trump was the first US president to skip the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in 36 years, choosing instead to attend a rally to mark his first 100 days in office.
Every sitting president since 1924 has attended the dinner at least once, according to The New York Times.
Most officials in the Trump administration also snubbed the 2017 dinner.
That won't be the case this year, however, with the Washington Post reporting that Mr Trump has said members of his administration are "free to mingle" at the event.
Former and current Trump administration members have already been spotted on the red carpet, including former press secretary Sean Spicer.
Mr Trump has had a strained relationship with the press, having previously called journalists "the enemy of the people" and frequently criticising media outlets for their "fake news".
Topics: donald-trump, world-politics, government-and-politics, information-and-communication, united-states
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