White House Correspondents' Association expresses concern over Michelle Wolf jokes, while Trump grouses


The big news on Sunday — if you got your news only from Twitter — was whether comedian Michelle Wolf crossed some line in her White House Correspondents' Dinner jokes on Saturday night. On Sunday night, White House Correspondents' Association President Margaret Talev said in a statement that she has "heard from members expressing dismay with the entertainer's monologue and concerns about how it reflects on our mission," a celebration of the free press and constitutional right to free speech. "Unfortunately, the entertainer's monologue was not in the spirit of that mission," Talev decided.
Wolf roasted the Washington press, Congress, Democrats, Republicans, Hillary Clinton, and others, but most of the criticism was of her minute-and-a-half bit about White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was there representing President Trump. Trump, for a second year, skipped the dinner to hold a campaign rally. Presidents traditionally attend the dinner themselves and participate in the roasting.
Talev, senior White House correspondent for Bloomberg News, said she would discuss "the format of the dinner going forward" with incoming WHCA president Olivier Knox. Trump tweeted Sunday that the "so-called comedian really 'bombed,'" then called Wolf "filthy" in a second tweet and groused about the 2011 WHCD where Seth Meyers aimed some jokes at a visibly unamused "birther"-era Trump.
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Meyers, whose Late Night employed Wolf as a writer before she joined The Daily Show, decided that given the pushback, Wolf could declare "Mission Accomplished." Peter Weber
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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.
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