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Tag: white house correspondents' association
Trump Makes People Laugh, But Not Because He's Witty (Or Even Funny)

Trump Makes People Laugh, But Not Because He's Witty (Or Even Funny)

In a display of Stockholm Syndrome, the White House Correspondents' Association invited Donald Trump to be the keynote speaker at their annual festival of self-appreciation. Because he is who he is, he did not take the opportunity to do the kind of gentle press ribbing that past presidents have engaged in, and he certainly declined to engage in the self-deprecating humor that charmed audiences in the old days. Instead, he delivered a string of puerile insults that would be beneath a fifth grader.

The tuxedo and ball gown-clad lads and ladies were forced to sit through meandering gibberish about the White House UFC fight, the weather forecast, the White House ballroom, why he hadn't attended the Correspondents' Association dinner in the past, and how "hot" America is now. Then he let loose with a string of gross insults:

"But I can exclusively reveal to you this evening that for the heaviest of the heavyweights, we will have Sloppy Chris Christie, one of the sloppiest human beings you'll ever meet. Fighting, I would say, I could mention the governor of Chicago (sic), but I'm going to mention instead Jerry Nadler. And they're fighting for a big piece of cheesecake, big fat piece of cheesecake."

But we had a contest for who had the lowest ratings and the lowest IQ on television. And that was actually Don Lemon, I think. When I said that he's the dumbest man on television, I said, 'When you say some things, you never make a comeback.'

"But this year, the association decided not to have a comedian. So they considered using Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy Fallon. These guys, they're terrible. They're terrible. Stephen Colbert, these are people without talent. They get a lot. They have talent. You know who has talent? Their agent getting them the money they get. They have no talent. But they are not comedians. They're not funny people. They're angry people. They're sick people."

The president also noted that he "hated ... Adam 'Shifty' Schiff," calling him "a terrible person. He's a liar. And I called him Watermelon Head because he is the largest head I've ever seen with the smallest neck, pencil neck. How does that big, fat, ugly head stand on a little pencil neck?"

Why dwell on this? Because many people, even those who abhor Trump, say he's funny.

I confess I've never seen the evidence. People often laugh at transgression. It's not that they find it funny (though some may) but that laughter is often a reaction to surprise. I've noticed in meetings that when people use the f-bomb, others tend to smile, not because it's funny but because it's surprising in the circumstances (or at least it used to be before the f-word became the all-purpose placeholder in modern speech).So perhaps Trump's gross insults and vile jibes evoke a certain shock and therefore laughter? I don't know. Certainly, some of his fans enjoy the grossness and cruelty, but that ain't wit.

We have seen wit in politicians in the past, and one must wonder whether our age would even recognize the real thing.

Sen. Bob Dole, the Kansas Republican who was crippled fighting in Italy during World War II, had a deadpan delivery. After he received just 607 votes in the 1980 New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, he said, "The day after New Hampshire, I went home and slept like a baby. Every two hours I woke up and cried." He coined the much-repeated line "The most dangerous place to be in Washington is between Chuck Schumer and a TV camera."Others did self-deprecating humor with grace. George W. Bush performed an 11-minute routine alongside Steve Bridges, a hilarious Bush impersonator. Both poked fun at the president's malapropisms and poor pronunciation.

Several years later, Obama invited Keegan-Michael Key to be his "anger translator." While not quite as self-effacing as Bush's skit, it did poke fun at Obama's cerebral, detached, sometimes even robotic delivery.

Running against World War II hero Dwight Eisenhower cannot have been easy. But Democrat Adlai Stevenson brought a certain elan to the task. In a 1952 Fresno speech, he said, "I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends ... that if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them." On another occasion, when a supporter approached him and declared, "You are every thinking man's candidate," he replied, "Thank you madam, but I require a majority."

When Dick Tuck lost a California state senate primary, he called a press conference and deadpanned, "The people have spoken — the bastards." Rep. Mo Udall later borrowed that line and also quipped that "the only cure for presidential fever is embalming fluid."

New York Mayor Ed Koch offered a variation on Tuck's theme when he lost reelection in 1989: "The people have spoken ... and they must be punished."

GOP Sen. Alan Simpson, Wyoming's unfailing wag, once described the political parties this way: "We have two political parties in this country, the Stupid Party and the Evil Party. I belong to the Stupid Party." He also said, "Those who travel the high road of humility are not troubled by heavy traffic."

And the frequently droll Sen. John McCain, responding to a young man who asked whether he wasn't too old to run for president (the Arizona Republican was 63), quipped, "Thanks for the question you little jerk." That was tart but not cruel, because the point was that the question had hit a nerve.

I don't know about you, but I would give a lot for a politician of genuine wit right now.

Trump said the White House Correspondents' Association didn't hire a comedian this year. True, but they did invite a clown.

Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the "Beg to Differ" podcast. Her new book, Hard Right: The GOP's Drift Toward Extremism, is available now.

Reprinted with permission from Creators

Trump's 'Donor-Funded' Ballroom Is Quickly Turning Into A Scam On Taxpayers

Trump's 'Donor-Funded' Ballroom Is Quickly Turning Into A Scam On Taxpayers

Some years ago, I was president of an organization called the Association of Opinion Journalists. Every year we would run a convention in a different city and end it with a celebration in the hotel's ballroom space. Our speaker on that closing night was usually some well-known political opinionator.

Members often talked about inviting the president to give that address, as had happened before. In 1947, Harry Truman spoke to the group (formerly called the National Conference of Editorial Writers), as did Lyndon Johnson in 1966. Other prominent government officials included Vice President Richard Nixon, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

In later years, however, members argued against having the president as speaker because it would subject the attendees to oppressive security checks. After slogging through days of seminars, they wanted to cut loose. The party was for us.

Now consider the recent White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, cut short by an apparent assassination attempt. The target appeared to be the evening's speaker, President Donald Trump, who used the fiasco to hawk his controversial $400 million White House ballroom as a more secure alternative to the Washington Hilton.

A federal judge has frozen the construction for lacking clear legal authority and congressional approval. Congress now has an opportunity to ditch the grandiose plan, saving taxpayers hundreds of millions.

Yes, Trump said it would be paid for by donations, not the taxpayers. The known donor list is heavy with big Wall Street, tech and law firm names. All have business before the federal government. Trump repaying their "kindness" could end up costing taxpayers a great deal. More troubling, some donor identities have been kept secret.

Of course, any events at a palatial White House ballroom would require extra security, and who would pay for that? The taxpayers, of course.

Enter Sen. Lindsey Graham. The South Carolina Republican is pushing a bill to tack another $400 million to the national debt to finish what donors were to pay for — and build a security infrastructure, a Secret Service annex, underneath the ballroom.

As Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt, a co-sponsor, explained unconvincingly, "This is about our nation having a place to gather."

The White House already has a State Dining Room that seats about 140 guests, and if more room is needed, the East Room can accommodate as many as 300. Why must the president's residence include a ballroom able to hold, according to Trump, nearly 1,000?

The biggest indoor banquet space at the French royal palace of Versailles — the Gallery of Battles — can serve "only" 650 diners max. That happens to be a lot of people.

Meanwhile, why must taxpayers be billed to provide a catering hall big enough for the White House correspondents' annual bash? They are an independent organization, just like the Association of Opinion Journalists was. We paid for our convention space, the big dinner and, yes, security, through dues, contributions, and participation fees. Had the taxpayers funded us, I'm sure several members would have written editorials or columns and nowadays produce TikToks condemning the use of public money for a private group.

A word about the correspondents' dinner itself. Over the years, it's morphed into a red-carpet event crafted to glamorize what should be working journalists who cover the president. Now there's a ton of "pregame" coverage of who is going, who is not, who got invited to the Vanity Fair magazine party. And don't leave out the Hollywood celebrities.

In his 1678 Christian allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan introduced Vanity Fair as an unseemly marketplace for pleasure, status and worldly ambition. "The name of that Town," Bunyan wrote, "is Vanity."

Sounds a lot like Washington, D.C.

Froma Harrop is an award winning journalist who covers politics, economics and culture. She has worked on the Reuters business desk, edited economics reports for The New York Times News Service and served on the Providence Journal editorial board.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Donald Trump WHCA

How Uncool And Humorless Donald Trump Killed The Funny

Authoritarians aren't known for their senses of humor. But the terminally unfunny and uncool Donald Trump has taken it to a new low. Out of fear of Trump’s thin-skinned resentment and bottomless appetite for reprisal, the White House Correspondents Association has canceled the comedy performance at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 26.

The association caved following criticism of scheduled comedian Amber Ruffin by the White House for her critical jokes about the administration, with an added Trumpian slight that she was a "second-rate comedian.” Said the head of the WHCA in response, “At this consequential moment for journalism, I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work.” Translation: We are completely cowed by the prospect of offending the maximum leader, who, already departing from traditional practice, again won't even be attending the dinner.

While this may be absurd, and even pitiful, it is not funny.

First, I've been to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and as anyone who has been there will tell you, the comedic performance is the highlight—if not the only bright spot—in a pretty dreary evening of people in formal wear looking over each other's shoulders to see who is coming into the room.

The whole evening really is forgettable—except for the comedy high points as by Stephen Colbert in 2006, Keegan-Michael Key playing Obama’s anger translator in 2015, and the all-time classic: Obama’s send up of Trump himself in 2011, which some see as the genesis of the whole Trump plague to get back at political leaders, the media, and elites everywhere for his humiliation.

Second, and more importantly, the White House correspondents’ obvious flinch once again illustrates Trump's improbable and pernicious influence on broad sectors of civil society—here the media.

And while the immediate loss may be just a few jokes, the broader principle is horrendous. The ability to criticize our leaders is not merely protected by the First Amendment, it is at its very heart. As Justice Frankfurter wrote 80 years ago, "[o]ne of the prerogatives of American citizenship is the right to criticize public men and measures."

And it's not simply a matter of freedom in the abstract. It's critical to the whole American experiment that Trump is in the process of putting through the meat grinder. Chief Justice Rehnquist, who was hardly known as a civil libertarian, spelled out the fundamental principle in an opinion upholding the right to lampoon the proud and famous, "[t]he freedom to speak one's mind is not only an aspect of individual liberty—and thus a good unto itself—but also is essential to the common quest for truth and the vitality of society as a whole."

Conversely, societies whose citizens and media fear criticizing their leaders are not true democracies. Most typically, they are repressive autocracies governed by fear. We wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Russian citizens feel nervous—or worse—when criticizing Putin, but we would see it as the soul of tyranny. It's time to hold the mirror up to our own quickly eroding democracy.

Trump is not only humorless; he's a killer of humor. He belongs in the same category as grim, ruthless, and fundamentally boring figures like Putin and Orbán. They are about as funny as a gray November afternoon in East Germany, circa 1980.

In fact, Trump is our most humorless president since Nixon. Both of them call to mind Paduk in Vladimir Nabokov’s Bend Sinister, a man bullied and ostracized and whose totalitarian rule is in some pathetic way an attempt at revenge for those grade-school slights.

So, no highlights this year of a comedian skewering the president. To make up for it, I am attaching a few classic clips from White House Correspondents’ Dinners in fully functioning democracies of years past, ending with Obama’s hilarious and standard-setting mockery of The Donald, which remains a riot to listen to, even if we may in some way still be paying the price for the skewering of this petty and puerile man by a President who was light-years more composed, wise, clever, and self-assured.

Talk to you later.

Last Week’s Talking Five Winner!

Another week, another batch of razor-sharp entries in our Caption This contest—proof that no matter how bleak the political landscape gets, at least we still have gallows humor.

Last week’s prompt: After Paul Weiss caved, the administration tacked on a few extra terms to their agreement. What’s the next minor-yet-entirely-autocratic requirement they’ll impose?

And wow, you all delivered. From Putin-Trump bro-mance jabs to nods at Melania’s modeling days to multiple demands for Brad Karp’s first-born grandchild, the competition was fierce.

In the end, we looked for something singularly absurd yet perfectly in character for this cartoonishly corrupt era. Rick Dortch took the crown with:

“Paul/Weiss Accepts Trump Crypto Only”

Wouldn’t even be the most dystopian thing they’ve pulled.

Congrats, Rick! A member of our team will reach out soon to get you your Talking Feds mug.

Reprinted with permission from Talking Feds Substack.

What To Do About Fox? Stop Treating It As A 'News' Organization

What To Do About Fox? Stop Treating It As A 'News' Organization

Ever since Fox News Channel launched in 1996 with a slogan that was an aggressive lie – “Fair and Balanced” – most viewers have understood that Rupert Murdoch and his lackey Roger Ailes created a propaganda operation, not a news channel.

And yet the latest revelations of deception, hypocrisy, and greed among the network’s management and “stars,” unbound by any journalistic principle, are nevertheless stunning. Perhaps we still expect a measure of self-respect even from our villains. But here we see an essential and sometimes noble democratic endeavor – delivering the news to a self-governing people – degraded beyond redemption.

There is no way to regain the trust so wantonly forfeited by Murdoch and his minions in misleading their audience about “fraud” in the 2020 election. No other media company is as culpable in relentlessly goading the attempted coup and insurrectionary violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 – a deadly assault on the republic that Fox still insists on whitewashing, even after the humiliating exposure of its knowing promotion of the “Big Lie.”

The unavoidable question that Americans and their institutions now confront is how to excise this diseased organ from our body politic.

As Murdoch is the first to remind us, Fox News can shield itself behind the First Amendment, even as its operations undermine the United States and the Constitution itself. Fox is free to lie, if not to defame, and everyone else is free to ignore its spew. Outside the courts, where Dominion Voting Systems may soon impose a heavy price on the network’s chicanery, there are few means to punish or isolate the Murdoch outfit. For the most part, that’s a very good thing.

What we should have learned from the Dominion lawsuit and other glaring episodes, however, is that America needs to establish barriers against disinformation and propaganda masquerading as “news.” A free government may have a limited role here, focused on curbing the incursions of hostile foreign powers. But in a media universe where privately held entities predominate, it is those outlets that must establish the boundaries – and sanction the malefactors who grossly and repeatedly violate them.

In Washington, D.C., where the nation witnessed the terrible havoc wrought by Fox’s recklessness, there are a few organizations with the clout to whack the Murdochs and their enablers. The White House Correspondents Association, which credentials journalists who cover the president and administration, can expel Fox from its ranks (and deny access to its vaunted annual dinner). The Congressional Press Galleries, which perform the same function on Capitol Hill, can do likewise.

And so they should.

Beyond all the text messages exposing the snide duplicity of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and their bosses, the exhibits in the Dominion lawsuit prove beyond doubt that Fox is not a news organization at all, but a partisan propaganda machine with no allegiance to the ideals of a free press.

The documents show Murdoch handing over Biden campaign ads, not yet aired, to Jared Kushner for the benefit of the Trump campaign -- an unlawful in-kind donation that provides the basis for a complaint to the Federal Election Commission. They depict the contempt expressed by him, his son Lachlan, and Fox executives for honest reporting that might harm ratings. Indeed, the lawsuit unearthed countless instances of conscious mendacity in election coverage.

What those incriminating documents don’t show is any commitment at Fox to the “health of the republic,” to “excellence in journalism,” to “robust news coverage” or to any of the aspirations that the correspondent’s groups claim to hold dear. No, what they show is precisely and undeniably the opposite.

It is worth noting that on the board of the White House Correspondents Association sits Jacqui Heinrich, a star witness to those Fox abuses. When the Emmy-winning Heinrich tweeted a fact-checking correction to Trump’s lies about election fraud – and specifically noted the lies emanating from Hannity as well – she infuriated powerful figures at the network who could crush her.

“Please get her fired,” the bullying Carlson urged Hannity. “Seriously…What the [expletive]? I’m actually shocked. It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.”

Rather than brush off that bullying rant, Fox executives forced Heinrich to delete her tweet – which had unforgivably reported plain and vital facts: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” (In an email to me after this column was published, Heinrich notes that she posted a second tweet correcting Trump that didn't include his tagging of her deceitful Fox colleagues, and later posted a couple more tweets correcting Trump election falsehoods.)

Heinrich got away without losing her job. At Fox, telling the truth is unacceptable and will likely get you fired, however – as Chris Stirewalt, the former Fox election analyst dumped for calling Arizona correctly on Election Night, discovered when Murdoch dumped him (and lied about the reason).

Whatever may happen if the Dominion lawsuit finally goes to trial, the nation’s leading journalists have the authority to register their disgust with Murdoch’s mockery of their vocation. To uphold their own professed standards, they have no other choice.

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