Many annual dinners have been cancelled or downsized due to deaths or political crises. The dinner was cancelled in 1930 due to the death of former president William Howard Taft; in 1942, following the United States' entry into World War II; and in 1951, over what President Harry S. Truman called the "uncertainty of the world situation".[14] In 1981, Ronald Reagan did not attend because he was recuperating after the attempted assassination on his life the previous month.[15] Donald Trump eschewed the 2017 dinner in favor of a political rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.