Trump jokes at Gridiron Dinner: 'Nobody does self-deprecating humor better than I do'

President Donald Trump speaks during the Governors&#039; Ball in the State Dinning Room of the White House on February 25, 2018 in Washington, DC.

(Image credit: Pool/Getty Images)

published 4 March 2018

President Trump delivered a joke-filled address at the Gridiron Dinner in Washington Saturday night, where he was joined by "members of the opposition party" — the press — and "some Democrats," too.

The annual dinner is similar to the White House Corespondents' Dinner, which Trump skipped in 2017. "My staff was concerned that I couldn't do self-deprecating humor. And I told them not to worry, nobody does self-deprecating humor better than I do," he quipped Saturday.

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Perhaps the president's most headline-making joke of the night addressed the chaos and turnover in the White House — at the expense of his wife, first lady Melania Trump. "So many people have been leaving the White House. It's actually been really exciting and invigorating 'cause you want new thought," Trump said. "So, I like turnover. I like chaos. It really is good. Now the question everyone keeps asking is, 'Who is going to be the next to leave? Steve Miller or Melania?'"

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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