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 Trump’s 65-minute speech, even he 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.
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)
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“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)