Legend has it that Donald Trump’s decision to run for president can be traced back to the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, when President Obama openly mocked Trump, who was in attendance, after years of Trump pushing the birther conspiracy theory. Trump never attended the Correspondents’ Dinner Again, including during his first term in office — that was until this year. After the initially scheduled dinner was postponed following an attempt by a gunman to breach the event, a rescheduled, scaled-down gathering took place at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C., on Friday night.
Traditionally, presidents’ speeches at the Correspondents’ Dinner are a mix of self-deprecation and good-spirited potshots at the press and political foes. Trump, clearly with an axe to grind against many present in the room (and others who weren’t), opted instead for a sort of Comedy Central-style roast. The only problem was that no one else participated in said roast, the jokes weren’t any good, and no one (aside from a few Trump sycophants) was laughing. Trump also frequently got sidetracked by digressions about the White House Ballroom, chandeliers, the UFC fight at the White House, his Freedom 250 speech, how he is treated by the press, and Iran.
About 20 minutes into his 65-minute speech, even Trump began to realize it wasn’t going well and started to speed through the jokes, at times even calling out the person who wrote the line. By the end, he admitted the whole thing was “stupid.”
A selection of Trump’s most noteworthy lines:
“This place is really the largest group of Trump Derangement Syndrome people ever put together at one time, I suspect. Some of you are lucky that our last dinner was cut short, because I had brought with me what would possibly have been consider — I’m telling you, I had something. I was going to go after you. I feel so badly doing this.” (Crickets)
“After hearing the gunshots, many people yelled ‘Get down!’ which caused Nicki Minaj to start twerking. Can you believe it? She’s the only one that really understood what that meant.”
“Tonight’s event is even crazier than the last time. In fact, it’s so successful that I’ve been informed by CBS News’s David Ellison — who’s going to do a… he’s the owner. He bought it, spent a lot of money, and he’s going to make, I think, fantastic changes and keep some of the great stuff going. But next year, they’re going to call it the Trump White House Correspondents’ Dinner.” (Crickets)
At the point Trump went on a tangent about the UFC fight hosted at the White House, which was supposed to set up the next wave of jokes, but it went so long that by the time he was done everyone forgot the setup (which had to do with the next match being held).
“But I can exclusively reveal to you this evening that for the heaviest of the heavyweights, we will have Sloppy Chris Christie—one of the sloppiest human beings you’ll ever meet—fighting, I could say the Governor of Chicago. But they’re fighting Jerry Nadler. And they’re writing for a fight of cheesecake. (Crickets). Who wrote that line?”
“And then Anderson Cooper is going to fight Lawrence O’Donnell. I’m not a fan of [Cooper], but for years he loved Trump. I did so many interviews with him and he was great, but he’s got a little different persuasion than me in many ways. And Lawrence O’Donnell—never liked him. Never thought he… We had a contest for who had the lowest ratings and the lowest IQ on television. And that was actually Don Lemon When I said that, he was left the dumbest man on television. When you say some things, you never make a comeback. It was never like, ‘Oh, gee, hey, Don, let’s have dinner some night.’ I know what I’m saying.”
“What the hell happens to [Bruce Springsteen]? He looks like hell. I’m sure he does not like the way I look. I don’t look so bad… The tour has been renamed: ‘Bored in the USA.'”
“This year, the association decided not to have a comedian. So, they considered using Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon. These guys, they are terrible. They’re terrible. Stephen Colbert. These are people without talent. You know who has talent? Their agents getting them the money they get. They have no talent. But they are not comedians. They are angry, they are sick people. But the association really put on a big show, and they have somebody very special. I look forward to seeing him. And so they thought about going with a professional clown for entertainment, but Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff was not available.” (Crickets)
“I want to personally congratulate CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on receiving her award. It was all about me. She should not get the award, it was fake, but I did not mind. I said congratulations. But it was fake, no question about it. But she is a young, attractive woman. She never smiles. Do you ever smile? Smile! You have a nice position, you’re at CNN Fake News, you should be a happy person. So smile, Kaitlan, just smile. We attack, and I thought Kaitlan had really made it big with a major new sponsorship, but then I informed her that it was not her on the Bud Light can. It was Dylan Mulvaney. And Dylan Mulvaney cost Bud Light $35 billion in market cap. It was the worst commercial ever made, by the way, for those people who want to hear that. Most people don’t care, but I would. I would not want to hire Dylan. They hired Dylan Mulvaney and the market cap has gone down by $35 billion. You wrote that commercial?” (Crickets)
“I know Democrats, and the word ‘Dumb-ocrat’ is something that has come into fashion. I changed the ‘e’ to a ‘u.’ I thought it was quite good, but I have not gotten much credit.” (Crickets)
“Another potential contender sadly refused to show up tonight. We invited Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren. She’s referred to as Pocahontas. I had apologized. They said, ‘We want you to apologize to Elizabeth Warren for calling her Pocahontas,’ and I ended up apologizing to the real Pocahontas. But Elizabeth Warren was supposedly of Indian heritage, and then she took the test, and she only had 1/1,024th Native American. And I said, ‘You know what? I think I’m more of an Indian than she is.’ This is what we have to deal with. But Senator Warren did not accept our invitation to debate. I wanted to debate her on various and sundry things, and she decided not to do it. And I decided to bury the hatchet, and I said, ‘No…’ Ah, I will not say this next one. You want to hear this one? ‘She wasn’t high up on her totem pole.’ (Crickets) Who the hell wrote that?”
“All joking aside, I do think we need term limits in Congress. Term limits are very important because I see what is happening. I see what is happening. The other day a senator I knew got a text—great guy—from his wife. And she said, ‘When you get home, I want to have you immediately come up the stairs and make love to me.’ And he said, ‘I cannot do both.’ You know? In other words, can’t go up the stairs and make love. Does anybody get that? That was actually the only thing I thought was good in this whole stupid speech that they wrote.”
