Best & Worst Moments from Trump's WH Correspondents' Dinner Speech

[0:00] all of the time and you can be very difficult you can be very very difficult people but i'm [0:06] probably being a little bit oversensitive sometimes i really do think that some of you [0:12] don't like me in fact i read a report i get 93 negative publicity 93 so how the hell did i win [0:21] the election by so much think of it i don't think that's true i can't believe it's 93 in the 80s [0:28] maybe but not 93 but this place is the really the largest group of trump derangement syndrome [0:38] people ever put together at one time i suspect joining me now to react is alicia kraus conservative [0:47] commentator and op-ed writer for the washington examiner and will rollins former federal [0:51] prosecutor and former democratic u.s house candidate welcome back to both of you um this whole thing was [0:58] a little odd because of the shooting at the last one i was there for that in in washington much [1:03] smaller crowd sort of the elephant in the room and something the president addressed watch from the [1:11] earliest moments after the attack on our dinner last april i knew we had to reschedule this event [1:18] as soon as possible we had to do it very quickly and we met very quickly and we figured something [1:24] out but the attempted mass murder at the washington hilton that's what it could have been was an assault [1:30] in our democracy itself very serious situation many of you were there with me and some showed extreme [1:38] bravery like pete egg set steve miller tom holman really they were standing on tables and most of [1:47] you were under the tables okay but so that was his way of sort of nodding people he did [1:56] have a lot of classy moments um where he sort of celebrated some of the journalists in the room and [2:02] said said nice things um said that he would have given a tougher speech back then but because of [2:06] that he was a little nicer to people but there were moments where you saw a coming together i just [2:11] i don't know maybe it's because i work with adam carolla and some other great comedians a few times [2:15] a week now but it's like there's so many missed opportunities it's like when i tune into snl i'm like [2:19] maybe i'm remembering the good old days of snl of like will ferrell kirsten wig like those types of [2:24] people and i like can it be funny can it be funny and then it ends up not being funny and i feel like i wasted [2:29] my time this is kind of like what that was like there are so many liners like as a mom of four [2:34] with the toddler a three-nager now he could have been like you know caroline she has two kids at [2:38] home that are under two years old you guys are more annoying to her than her whiny toddler like [2:43] they're just lines that should write themselves that could have been delivered that i feel like [2:48] he kind of missed out on well to his credit he does he does have some good jokes in there but i think [2:52] part of the reason it's gotten less funny over the years is because they've taken away the comedians [2:57] from the white house correspondence dinner because he got pissed off when michelle wolf roasted him [3:01] and all the prior presidents were willing to sit there and take some jokes right he can dish it out [3:06] but he just can't take it and it's too bad because he is funny a lot of the time not all of it but he [3:11] does he seemed especially funny when it was clear he was reading off of the prompter some jokes that [3:17] likely were written for him including this one about the secretary of health and human services [3:22] robert f kennedy jr i hope that everyone finally got to enjoy their entire very delicious beef tenderloin [3:32] very special beef and i want you all to know that bobby kennedy is right here personally ran over the cow [3:40] in his car and so it's very fresh of course that is an incident to bobby kenny actually running over [3:53] animals in the past in his car joke is a hint of truth like everybody more than a hint do you do a [4:00] one with a raccoon that's my question i don't know how you how you've marinated that yeah i still don't [4:04] know he referenced the raccoon as well as part of this see that was the funny part but then he would [4:10] go off script and then do these long sort of meandering takes that did not necessarily work [4:17] in the room this ain't his crowd this ain't his crowd no offense y'all ain't his crowd like i don't [4:21] know that he there's anything that he could do i i think he could actually be very funny but i don't [4:26] think that there's anything that the president could have done to make that crowd like slap their knee [4:32] laugh out loud they laughed at bobby kenny because it was a joke at bobby's expense i think if there's [4:39] any joke at the expense of the audience who's actually there there's very few professionals who can make [4:44] that work well speaking of that there was a moment uh of course when barack obama was president was [4:49] on stage and he got a lot of laughs for making fun of donald trump and donald trump was in the in the [4:56] room that's been played over and over again there's been so much speculation that that was the thing [5:00] that made donald trump run for president trump said not true there's one time in particular when [5:09] barack hussein obama hosted it do you know who that is and he hit me hard but actually he hit me [5:17] with respect and i have watched this clip thousands of times they keep playing it because they think [5:21] that was evening i decided to run for president it was not in fact i loved the evening i looked at my [5:28] wife i said can you believe in all these people that's all they're doing is talking about me i love [5:32] this dinner well i i definitely believe that i think um you know the issue is he is actually funny at [5:40] times right and judd appetizer very funny his theory of who wins presidential elections is the funniest [5:46] candidate wins i think the problem for president trump is he just cannot take a joke right so he [5:52] can give it out but he just won't have a comedian come back in and roast him and i think if he had [5:56] some self-deprecation he actually could win people in the middle i'm not somebody who just says everything [6:01] that he does is wrong i agree with some of the things that this president does and had i been elected [6:06] would have tried to actually get something done in a bipartisan way with him but that part of his [6:11] personality just isn't it i think i think that we are so used to barack obama can be funny george w [6:17] bush we were saying off air like the guy is very funny he has that kind of like gift of of bringing [6:23] light to situations i've heard that from numerous people and people that worked with him but i think [6:27] that we're forgetting and i'm old enough to remember the lauding and the praise and the groveling [6:33] of comedians and of hollywood and of the media of any time there's a democrat in office so then when [6:40] they maybe self-depreciate once or or twice we're like oh yay good for them but they were on every [6:46] single cover of every magazine on every single night show with like jimmy kimmel and colbert and [6:50] all these people telling him how wonderful he was even when he wore the brown suit and so i think that [6:55] in trump's defense he's kind of used to everybody hating him and he's like why do i got to be nice to [7:00] you guys i'm gonna say what i want to say well and but yet this time for the first time in a long time [7:04] decided to go at all uh and he sort of talked about his relationship with the press including [7:11] how good he's been for some in the media you people have no idea how lucky you are when i'm [7:18] gone you're all going to be broke your business model is going to be finished no it's true when [7:24] i'm not around you're going to be broke there's not going to be anybody to report on nobody gives [7:29] a damn about anybody else i mean there kind of is some truth there you look at the numbers yeah i [7:38] mean presidents have had right fraught relationships with the media this media has had a very interesting [7:43] relationship with this particular president but i will say the criticism that he's lobbed at them [7:48] back makes you wonder why the guy got involved in politics in the first place and i think on a more [7:52] serious note you know he can tell all the jokes he wants at this correspondence dinner but when you go [7:57] when you go out and have the justice department subpoena reporters or you really personally [8:01] criticize reporters to such a degree that you're trying to intimidate them and you're worried about [8:05] actually free and fair criticism that all presidents have had to endure that's something that's a [8:10] little bit more serious that i think that you know should be called out and that he needs to as the [8:16] leader of the free world actually back up with words and deeds well i talked about jack smith tonight [8:20] called him a bad prosecutor said a lot of very mean things about caitlin collins our colleague here [8:27] on cnn made fun of jake tapper uh tonight made fun of other reporters that had won awards and we [8:33] saw in the room as he did that we saw some cutaways of the crowd sort of silent and uncomfortable in [8:38] this room um these were certainly not lines meant for the people in this room maybe it is for some [8:45] folks uh outside of the room this is some video of owes the mentalist who uh had to perform at like [8:51] one o'clock in the morning now it was like 11 o'clock at night because this thing went so long [8:55] um but he was the choice watches everything yes that that you know loves talking to reporters [9:07] in a way that certainly joe biden never did for sure at least the guy is available to you and [9:12] transparent right compared especially compared to past administrations well available and transparent [9:17] are not always the same thing those are not always the same more true but he's he's definitely more [9:25] transparent than the biden administration and i would even argue he speaks more to the media [9:28] than the biden administration i would even argue the obama administration i mean obama is a guy and [9:33] i don't know if i have an nda or not but i remember in another in a past life when i worked in talk radio [9:38] him threatening conservative news organizations and and mocking talk radio hosts and conservative [9:45] bloggers and all of these things and saying fine when i'm president i'm never going on your show if [9:49] you let this person keep talking about me that way it is i'd agree that is wrong a free and fair [9:54] press first amendment is something i advocate for all the time including on you know liberal college [9:59] campuses where they want to shut me up every single semester but i think that it is we can't you know [10:04] it's it is both sides do this and unfortunately the left often does it much much more well i think [10:10] both both sides definitely should engage with each other more and i i give you credit for going on to [10:15] campuses that are hostile right i mean we need more of that i give a lot of pete credit for going on [10:19] going on to fox right where a lot of democrats won't go on to fox like we need more dialogue [10:23] like that i do think when it comes to press though and leadership there's comedians right and then [10:28] there's the president of the united states and when you attack the media the way that the president of [10:32] the united states is doing it that sets a tone for the whole country and leadership in government right [10:37] i'm all for stand-up comic specials like funny people going and roasting at the correspondence dinner [10:43] but for the president to attack the media the way that he has again and again it's it's not a great [10:48] tone to set for the leader of the free world and we can keep comedy to be comedy and politics [10:54] a little bit maybe more normal right well jokes are one thing but but sort of there are some moments [11:00] where there there were no laughs that went with the lines uh and those are some of them that are [11:05] concerning at a moment that is so fraught for the media for so many different reasons based off of [11:09] what's happening in our business you got jeff mason is bloomberg's white house correspondent he's the [11:14] former president of the white house correspondence association which means he has run these dinners [11:20] in the past he joins us live from washington after attending the dinner it's late at night now thank [11:27] you for being with us um you've been to a lot of these jeff what was it like inside the room and how [11:34] was it different from some of the others that you've attended well it was different because president [11:42] trump attended and he he did not attend any of the dinners during his first term including [11:46] the one that i presided over in 2017. so it was just that alone was different because this is a [11:53] president who has been uh used such vitriolic language about the press during his first term and now [12:00] during his second term certainly during both of his campaigns and as part of that brand has boycotted [12:06] the dinner so he came tonight um he stayed on brand he he used a lot of uh insults in his uh as he [12:15] referenced in his in his very long speech um he mixed that with a few things that were not insulting [12:21] but um he he certainly stayed on brand for that um and otherwise what was it like being in the room i [12:28] mean it was you know it was the whole history of this dinner uh being the second version of the one that [12:36] was supposed to have happened and partially happened in april certainly hung over the night [12:41] um and he referenced that in a in a positive way and so did the others who spoke including uh the [12:47] current president or the outgoing president ouija chang so that that was um that part was uplifting i [12:53] would say but certainly a lot of the other things that the president talked about um were quite negative [12:58] with regard to the press so traditionally the president um has a bunch of joke writers uh that come up [13:06] with a lot of one-liners that the president reads and the this president read some of them including [13:12] one about nikki minaj watch after hearing the gunshots many people yelled get down get down which caused [13:23] nikki minaj to start twerking do you believe get down she's the only one that really understood what that [13:32] meant it is hard for me to believe that president trump came up with that joke on his own uh but there are [13:40] several other moments where it was very clear that he went off of the prompter he would do one seem [13:48] like he'd do like a joke or two and then go into one of his rants it seemed like that was the theme of [13:54] the night which by the way is how president trump gives speeches full stop i i think that what was [14:02] probably unusual about tonight is that the room was not a room full of supporters and so some of the energy [14:08] that he probably got back from those of us who were sitting in the ballroom was not what he's [14:12] accustomed to when people laugh at at his jokes or accept the insults or accept some of the things [14:19] that he says that uh that i guess are more acceptable in a in a rally or in a a room with people who are [14:27] who are trump supporters this was a room largely of journalists he certainly got smatterings of applause [14:33] because he had uh some of the members of his administration who were guests of of news [14:38] organizations in the room but uh but it was certainly a different vibe for him and i think he picked up [14:44] on that but i think broadly to your to your point yeah he had some jokes um one of the ones that people [14:50] did laugh at was at towards the beginning of his speech he said that uh he was glad people could eat [14:56] their beef and he joked that rfk jr the secretary of uh health and human services had run over um the the [15:04] beef himself or run over the animal himself and that was sort of a dig at at rfk but most of the jokes [15:12] were as you say he went back and forth from joke to going off script which is his mo yeah that uh it [15:18] seemed like that room was very happy to laugh at rfk jr read whatever into that uh but he also you know [15:25] talked a lot about the press some of it positive but much of it negative here's some of that i always [15:33] find that when you don't speak to the press you always get a bad story when you do speak to the [15:37] press you have a shot at getting a good story and this gets to trump which is something you've seen [15:44] up close and personal um he talks more to you guys certainly than any other president you've covered [15:52] right i mean some people may say it's not always transparent what he says but donald trump loves [15:57] interacting with the media he absolutely does and he is certainly the most accessible president that [16:05] i have covered and i think they're proud of the fact that he can i think plausibly claim to be the [16:10] most um accessible transparent is a different word but accessible president in uh in modern history [16:18] i think that's absolutely true i mean the man takes phone calls from reporters from all over town [16:23] in addition to holding multiple uh q a's at the in the oval offices and in in in the white house that [16:31] does not excuse calling press fake news or enemy of the american people or some of the other very [16:39] pejorative and negative things that he that he says about the press but it is absolutely accurate to [16:44] say that he is very accessible he certainly is and and he referenced that tonight too jeff mason uh staying up [16:53] late for us thank you so much for being with us and and now hopefully you can have a drink