While you were sleeping, Donald Trump and his cohort were roasted to hell and back at the annual White House Correspondent‘s dinner, by a viciously clever Hasan Minhaj from ‘The Daily Show‘.
Trump skipped out on the night’s festivities – making him the first president to do so since Ronald Reagan in 1981 – a fact not lost for one second on Minhaj.
“We’ve got to address the elephant that’s not in the room,” he cracked early on. “The leader of our country is not here. And that’s because he lives in Moscow. It’s a very long flight. It’d be hard for Vlad to make it. Vlad can’t just make it on a Saturday! As for the other guy, I think he’s in Pennsylvania because he can’t take a joke.”
Trump was in fact in Pennsylvania, telling a crowd of nearly 10,000 people that he “could not possibly be more thrilled to be more than 100 miles away from Washington’s swamp”, which sounds exactly like what somebody who couldn’t take a joke would say.
“You know, a lot of people told me, ‘Hassan. If you go after the administration, it would be petty, unfair and childish’,” said Minhaj. “In other words, presidential, so here we go.”
Not one member of Trump’s inner (and in the case of Steve Bannon, swiftly heading outer) circle were left unscathed.
Jeff Sessions: “Jeff Sessions couldn’t be here tonight, he was busy doing a pre-Civil War reenactment. On his RSVP, he just wrote ‘NO.’ Just ‘no,’ which happens to be his second favourite n-word.”
Steve Bannon: “Is Steve Bannon here? I do not see Steve Bannon. I do NOT see Steve Bannon. Not see Steve Bannon. Nazi Steve Bannon.”
Mike Pence: “Mike Pence wanted to be here tonight, but his wife would not let him because apparently one of you ladies is ovulating. So good job, ladies. Because of you we couldn’t hang out with Mike Pence.”
Sean Spicer: “He has been doing PR since 1999. He has been doing this job for 18 years. And somehow, after 18 years, his go-to move when you ask him a tough question is denying the Holocaust. That is insane! How many people do you know that can turn a press briefing into a full-on Mel Gibson traffic stop?”
But then, Hilary Clinton didn’t escape untorched, either.
“Even Hillary Clinton couldn’t be here tonight. I mean, she could have been here, but I think someone told her the event was in Wisconsin and Michigan.”
And of course, neither did the press.
“Remember election night? That was your Steve Harvey/Miss Universe moment.”
“Fox News is here. I’m amazed you guys even showed up. How are you here in public? It’s hard to trust you guys when you backed a man like Bill O’Reilly for years. But it finally happened. Bill O’Reilly has been fired. But then, you gave him a $25 million severance package. Making it the only package he won’t force a woman to touch.”
But it was mostly Trump.
“Frederick Douglass isn’t here, and that’s because he’s dead. Someone please tell the president.”“We all know this administration likes deleting history faster than Anthony Weiner when he hears footsteps.”
“You guys [the press] have to be more perfect now more than ever. Because you are how the president gets his news. Not from advisers, not from experts, not from intelligence agencies. You guys. So that’s why you gotta be on your A game. You gotta be twice as good. You can’t make any mistakes. Because when one of you messes up, he blames your entire group. And now you know what it feels like to be a minority.”
Trump’s very absence from the dinner – and we repeat, the first time a president has missed the opportunity to roast and be roasted in 36 years, and that’s only because Reagan was recovering from being shot in an assassination attempt – was not a topic Minhaj skipped over.
“I was asked to not roast the president and the administration in their absentia,” he said. “And I completely understand that. We are in a very strange situation where there is a very combative relationship between the press and the president, but now that you guys are minorities – just for this moment – you might understand the position I was in. And it’s the same position that a lot of minorities kids feel in this country. And it’s, ‘Do I come up here and just try to fit in and not ruffle any feathers? Or do I say how I really feel?
“Because this event is about celebrating the First Amendment and free speech. Free speech is the foundation of an open and liberal democracy, from college campuses to the White House.
“Only in America can a first-generation Indian-American Muslim kid get on this stage and make fun of the president. ‘The orange man behind the Muslim ban.’ It’s a sign to the rest of the world, it’s this amazing tradition, that even the president is not beyond the reach of the First Amendment.
“But the president didn’t show up. because Donald Trump doesn’t care about free speech. The man who tweets everything that enters his head refuses to acknowledge the amendment that allows him to do it.”
You can watch his full set below:
Photo: C-SPAN / YouTube.
