Michelle Wolf draws laughs and outrage at the White House Correspondents' Dinner

Michelle Wolf at the WHCD
(Image credit: Global News/Screenshot)

The host of the 2018 White House Correspondents' Dinner (WHCD) was Daily Show correspondent and comedian Michelle Wolf, who turned in a biting performance that sparked laughs and outrage alike.

  • "I did have a lot of jokes about Cabinet members. But I had to scrap all of those because everyone has been fired. You guys are going through Cabinet members quicker than Starbucks throws out black people."
  • "Mike Pence is what happens when Anderson Cooper isn't gay."
  • "Every time Sarah [Huckabee Sanders] steps up to the podium, I get excited, because I'm not really sure what we're going to get. You know, a press briefing, a bunch of lies, or divided into softball teams."
  • "Democrats are harder to make fun of because you guys don't do anything. People think you might flip the House and Senate this November, but you guys always find a way to mess it up. You're somehow going to lose by 12 points to a guy named Jeff Pedophile Nazi Doctor." [Michelle Wolf, via The Washington Post]

She particularly targeted White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, whom Wolf said "burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye." Her comments about Sanders drew critique from New York Times correspondent Maggie Haberman:

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Watch Wolf's full speech here.

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Bonnie Kristian

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.