Comedian Wolf draws laughs, gasps at 2018 correspondents’ dinner
WASHINGTON — If President Donald Trump isn’t comfortable being the target of jokes, comedian Michelle Wolf has given him and others plenty of reasons to squirm.
“It’s 2018 and I’m a woman, so you cannot shut me up, unless you have Michael Cohen wire me $130,000,” she cracked at the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Association on Saturday night.
No, Trump’s personal attorney wasn’t there. And, for the second year, Trump himself skipped the event.
Wolf, the after-dinner entertainment for the White House press corps and their guests, was surprisingly racy for the venue and seemed more at home on HBO than C-SPAN. After one crass joke drew groans in the Washington Hilton ballroom, she laughed and said, “Yeah, shoulda done more research before you got me to do this.”
Trump, noting how Wolf’s routine played, observed in a tweet Sunday: “While Washington, Michigan, was a big success, Washington, D.C., just didn’t work. Everyone is talking about the fact that the White House Correspondents Dinner was a very big, boring bust … 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. In Michigan, the president assured his audience he’d rather be there than in that other city by that name.
“Is this better than that phony Washington White House Correspondents’ Dinner? Is this more fun?” Trump asked, 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?’”
At least one Trump antagonist attended — porn star Stormy Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti, who tweeted he and Conway had a “spirited discussion.”