Another place Don didn’t want to Bee
WASHINGTON — Samantha Bee turned Washington’s hottest weekend into a hornet’s nest.
At Saturday’s “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner,” the “Full Frontal” host was a profane steamroller — torching President Trump as “the presidential Fyre Festival,” dancing on the career graves of ousted Fox Newsers, and coaxing Will Ferrell’s beloved Dubya impression out of retirement.
The alt-correspondents’ dinner opened with Allison Janney, reprising her “West Wing” role as press secretary C.J. Cregg, fielding questions from ghoulish news outlets she deemed “the dregs of a free society” — and eventually shooting them with eye lasers.
Bee, taking the DAR Constitution Hall stage in a white pantsuit, vowed to treat the “real journalists” slightly nicer — promising she’d get Mexico to bankroll their cash-bar date.”
Crew members at the First Amendment homage wore Tshirts blaring the words “Free Press,” and the guests of honor were from the nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists, for which Bee and her audience of roughly 2,600 raised almost $200,000 in ticket sales. “These are the guys you call if you leave the hall tonight and discover your car has been keyed by (White House press secretary) Sean Spicer,” she quipped.
A pre-show purple carpet drew the likes of Padma Lakshmi, CNN’s Jake Tapper and Van Jones, Ana Gasteyer, Matthew Modine, Ali Larter and indie-pop duo Tegan & Sara. Steve Buscemi, George Takei and Patton Oswalt also appeared in pre-taped bits.
The show’s peak came from “Saturday Night Live” alum Ferrell — the much-touted “surprise guest” — reprising his shoot-fromthe-hip George W. Bush impression. “How do you like me now?” Ferrell drawled, sauntering onstage to cheers. “History’s proven to be kinder to me than many of you thought.”
Repeatedly misusing the word “prodigal,” Ferrell-as-Bush joked that Trump’s “Mar-a-Lago” sounded more like a Tom Clancy title. “That night in the steamy, sultry air of the Mar-a-Lago club, the President steered a sumptuous and beautiful slice of chocolate cake,” he said. “He chewed it with steely reserve, and then — with the delicious and really wonderful chocolate cake still in his mouth — he turned to the Chinese President, who was also enjoying his wonderful dessert, and said, ‘I have just launched 59 missiles at Iraq. Or perhaps Syria.’” beverages “at a later