Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders took to ABC'S "This Week" on Sunday to clarify the President's decision to skip the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. Sanders explained that the tension between the White House and the press is too large to ignore, the New York Post reported.
"This wasn't a president that was elected to spend his time with reporters and celebrities, this is a president who campaigned on speaking directly to Americans, and that's what he's going to spend his time doing," Sanders told host George Stephanopoulos.
"I think it’s kind of naive of us to think that we can all walk into a room for a couple of hours and pretend that some of that tension isn’t there," Sanders continued.
"You know, one of the things we say in the south if a Girl Scout egged your house, would you buy cookies from her? I think that this is a pretty similar scenario," she said. "There's no reason for him to go in and sit and pretend like this is going to be just another Saturday night."
Sanders finished by explaining that the President would be spending his night focusing on how to improve America.
"I think he'll spend the night focused on what he can do to help better America," she said.
"I think a lot would argue the eggs have gone both ways on that," Stephanopoulos said.
President Trump tweeted his decision to skip the event Saturday.
The last President to skip the event was Ronald Reagan in 1981, the New York Post reported. Reagan was recovering from an assassination attempt at the time, but phoned in to the event to speak to the crowd.