Watch the potentially huge moment Obama publicly humiliated Donald Trump in 2011

Donald Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents Association gala

(Image credit: Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

published 14 September 2015

In April 2011, on the Saturday night that U.S. Special Forces were about to kill Osama bin Laden in a daring raid ordered by President Obama, the president was telling jokes at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. It was near the end of peak "birther" fever, right after the State of Hawaii released Obama's long-form birth certificate, as demanded by one Donald Trump, who was then exploring a presidential bid himself. Obama roasted him, among many others:

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Seated a few tables away from us magazine scribes, Trump's humiliation was as absolute, and as visible, as any I have ever seen: his head set in place, like a man in a pillory, he barely moved or altered his expression as wave after wave of laughter struck him. There was not a trace of feigning good humor about him, not an ounce of the normal politician's, or American regular guy's "Hey, good one on me!" attitude — that thick-skinned cheerfulness that almost all American public people learn, however painfully, to cultivate. No head bobbing or hand-clapping or chin-shaking or sheepish grinning — he sat perfectly still, chin tight, in locked, unmovable rage. If he had not just embarked on so ugly an exercise in pure racism, one might almost have felt sorry for him. [The New Yorker]

Gopnik goes on to imagine a future "micro-history of that night" that either revolves around "the double life of Barack Obama as cool comedian and quiet commander" or, if Trump is elected, the moment "Trump's ambitions suddenly turned over to the potent politics of shame and vengeance," leading to the unleashing of his particular brand of ugly "populist nationalism" on the American body politic. Well, it's a thought. You can read the rest at The New Yorker.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.