No matter how the White House Correspondents’ Dinner would have gone this year, it was bound to be a topic of discussion for one reason or another as US President Donald Trump snubbed the dinner for a rally in Pennsylvania.
Trump became the first president since Ronald Reagan in 1981 to skip the event — and Reagan was recovering from an assassination attempt.
However, in his absence, many were expecting it to be a rather dreary affair. But, the ‘Daily Show’ comedian Hasan Minhaj was in no mood to let it go quietly. The entertainment headliner came out all guns blazing to lampoon Trump.
Minhaj launched the attack by saying,'We've got to address the elephant that's not in the room'.
'The leader of our country is not here. And that's because he lives in Moscow. It's a very long flight. As for the other guy, I think he's in Pennsylvania because he can't take a joke.'
At one point Minhaj mocked Trump by saying that the president looks like he'd been roasted for 70 straight years.
After Trump, it was his chief spokesman's turn, Minhaj said,'I don't see Sean Spicer here tonight because I think he's at home googling how to fake his own death.'
Even after Trump's snub and lack of glamorous Hollywood stars, the dinner received favourable reviews by many media outlets for once again bringing the focus on praising the First Amendment and Freedom of Press.
Here are some of Minhaj’s other searing burns:
• Talking directly to CNN reporters: 'CNN is here baby, now, you guys have got some really weird methods. You aren't fake news, but not everything is breaking news.'
• 'Nate Silver told me there would be a 74.1 per cent chance that this joke would kill. I believed you, Nate, I believed you.'
• 'Sean Spicer has somehow been doing PR since 1999, which is 18 years. Somehow, after 18 years, his go-to move was denying the Holocaust.'
• 'Jeff Sessions couldn't be here tonight, he was too busy doing a pre-Civil war reenactment. On his RSVP he just wrote just wrote no - which happens to be his second favorite N-word.'
• 'I do not see Steve Bannon,' he said repeatedly, slowing the words 'not see' down, giving the effect of saying 'Nazi- Steve Bannon.'
• Speaking about the fact that he is a first generation Indian-American Muslim, he referred to the President as: 'The orange man behind the Muslim ban'