Given President Donald Trump’s reputation with the media, it was no surprise that he became the first United States President to skip the annual White House Correspondents’ dinner. So in his absence the honors for the evening went to an Indian-origin comedian Hassan Minhaj, who performed a blistering act.
“I would say it’s an honor to be here, but that would be an alternative fact,” he said. “No one wanted to do this, so of course it lands in the hands of an immigrant. No one wanted this gig.”
Point out the absence of Donald he said: “The leader of our country is not here. That’s because he lives in Moscow, it’s a very long flight. It’d be hard for Vlad to make it. Vlad can’t just make it on a Saturday! As for the other guy, I think he’s in Pennsylvania because he can’t take a joke.”
During the 25 minute act, he termed the present moment as the “Golden Age of Lying” and called Donald Trump the “Liar-in-chief.”
Minhaj even turned his attention towards Hillary Clinton, saying “Even Hillary Clinton couldn’t be here tonight. I mean, she could have been here, but I think someone told her the event was in Wisconsin and Michigan.”
He did not even spare the media, as he had many things to share.
"I have one quick request. MSNBC, please tell Rachel Maddow to chill about Trump's tax returns. There's not going to be a line item in there saying 'bribes from Russia'."
On CNN's hyping of trivial events to "breaking news": "I'm not going to call you fake news, but everything isn't breaking news. You can't go to DEFCON One just because Sanjay Gupta found a new moisturizer."
"Who would have thought that with everything going on in the country now that a Muslim would be standing on this stage, for the 9th year in a row." -- a reference to President Obama attending the event for eight years amid right-wing rumors that he is a Muslim.
"Let the man putt putt! It keeps him distracted. Tell him he has a great body for bobsledding. The longer you keep him distracted, the longer we're not at war with North Korea!" -- On Trump's purported war-mongering.
"I've been watching House of Cards just to relax. Oh, a vice president pushes a journalist in front of a train? How quaint."
On Ivanka Trump: "If she was here, I would ask the question we're all thinking. Why? Why do you support this man? We all love our parents, but we wouldn't endorse them for president. My dad? The guy who tries to return underwear to Costco? No!"
"This has been one of the strangest events of my life. If this goes poorly, Steve Bannon gets to eat me."
He ended his performance with a reference to Donald Trump’s propensity for tweeting. “It’s 11 p.m.,” Minhaj said. “In four hours, he will be tweeting about how bad Nikki Minaj bombed at this dinner.
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