This year's comedian at the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, Michelle Wolf, got mixed reviews for her bold line of jokes that ranged from clever jabs to racy rarities to what some called downright mean.
Comic relief pointed at the U.S. president is an annual tradition that goes back decades, done in the name of charity at a dinner full of journalists.
President Donald Trump, however, skipped the dinner for the second year, passing to his press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders the honor of attending – and taking the punches.
While Sanders had said it was "important for us to be here," she looked like she regretted the decision once Wolf's comedy routine hit stride.
"We are graced with Sarah's presence tonight. I have to say I'm a little star struck," Wolf began, with Sanders seated just a few feet away.
Wolf went on to mock everything from her truthfulness to her appearance and Southern roots, in a roast that had some in the audience laughing and left others in stony silence.
Michelle Wolf destroys Sarah Huckabee Sanders at #WHCD pic.twitter.com/pKGSSOCu8d
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) April 29, 2018
"I actually really like Sarah. I think she's very resourceful. But she burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's lies. It's probably lies," Wolf said, jabbing at Sanders' eyeshadow choices.
She then deepened the dig, picking on Sanders' tripartite name to digress into a slam of her feminist credentials: "What's Uncle Tom, but for white women who disappoint other white women?"
Both attendees of the dinner and members of the public took to Twitter to express a range of reactions to the comedy routine.
Some said the act crossed a line, forfeiting its comic relief.
Being mean is not really funny.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) April 29, 2018
Some said the dinner justified Trump's dislike of the press, while some members of the press said it made their battle for respect of the public even more difficult in an already unfriendly atmosphere.
If the #WHCD dinner did anything tonight, it made the chasm between journalists and those who don't trust us, even wider. And those of us based in the red states who work hard every day to prove our objectivity will have to deal with it.
— Meg Kinnard (@MegKinnardAP) April 29, 2018
But others defended Wolf's act as simply in line with the tradition of the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
This defense of Sarah Huckabee Sanders by prominent women is appalling and misguided. The point of WHCD is to drag the current administration and it's not Michelle Wolf's fault the jokes were a little too on the nose.
— Shoulda listened to Samhita (@TheSamhita) April 29, 2018
Others called the strong reaction in support of Sanders hypocrisy, as she publicly represents Trump, who has not been circumspect in his harsh criticisms of minorities, women and even his male peers.
All the folks, especially media personalities and journalists, who are so utterly outraged by Michelle Wolf's jokes about Sarah Huckabee Sanders, I wish you would have shown 10% of this emotion when Trump mocked and said hateful things against Muslims, Mexicans and immigrants.
— Wajahat Ali (@WajahatAli) April 29, 2018
Trump himself was the brunt of multiple jokes, but brushed it off as "a very big, boring bust," adding in a tweet that "the so-called comedian really 'bombed.'"
As he did last year, Trump flew to a Republican-friendly district to rally supporters on the same night as the dinner.
"Is this better than that phony Washington White House Correspondents' Dinner? Is this more fun?" Trump asked supporters in Michigan, sparking cheers.
"I could be up there tonight, smiling, like I love where they're hitting you, shot after shot. These people, they hate your guts ... and you've got to smile. If you don't smile, they say, 'He was terrible, he couldn't take it.' And if you do smile, they'll say, "What was he smiling about?'"
The dinner once attracted Oscar winners and other notable performers in film and television as well as celebrities in sports and other high-profile professions. The star power dimmed appreciably last year when the famously thin-skinned Trump, who routinely slammed reporters as dishonest and their work as "fake news," announced he wasn't attending. He was the first president to skip the event since Ronald Reagan bowed out in 1981 as he recovered from an assassination attempt.
Unlike last year, when Trump aides also declined to attend, the Trump White House had its contingent, including counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Former administration officials were on hand, such as onetime press secretary Sean Spicer, ex-chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and ex-political aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman.
Among Wolf's less off-color one-liners:
—"Just a reminder to everyone, I'm here to make jokes, I have no agenda, I'm not trying to get anything accomplished, so everyone that's here from Congress you should feel right at home."
—"It is kinda crazy that the Trump campaign was in contact with Russia when the Hillary campaign wasn't even in contact with Michigan."
—"He wants to give teachers guns, and I support that because then they can sell them for things they need like supplies."
