As we noted in yesterday's tweets of the day, the White House Correspondents' Dinner was last night, and despite the traditional, uncomfortable "nerd prom" look of journalists rubbing shoulders with the politicians and celebrities they cover, there were some decent zingers fired off. After beginning by lauding the media for covering the hard stories here and abroad, and pledging to get unlawfully detained journalists Evan Gershkovich and Austin Rice released, President Biden had some self-deprecating jokes about his age and more:
“I believe in the First Amendment, and not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it.”
“I get that age is a completely reasonable issue. It’s on everyone’s mind, by everyone I mean the New York Times."
"It's great that the cable news networks are here tonight. MSNBC owned by NBC Universal. Fox News owned by Dominion Voting Systems."
"I like Rupert Murdoch. How can I dislike a guy who makes me look look Harry Styles?”
"I had a lot of Ron DeSantis jokes, but Mickey Mouse beat the hell out of me first. You can't blame the guy. He was asked if he had a mandate. He said no, I'm straight."
Roy Wood, Jr., fresh from The Daily Show, was the featured comedian, and he also landed some punches on the media and political figures:
“You all look good though. I’ve been watching and looking around all night. … Looks like everybody got a little piece of that settlement money from Fox News.”
“The untouchable Tucker Carlson is out of a job, some people celebrate it but to Tucker’s staff, I want you to know that I know what you’re feeling. I work at ‘The Daily Show’ so I, too, have been blindsided by the sudden departure of a host of a fake news program.”
“[Harlan Crow] bought a Supreme Court justice. Do you understand how rich you have to be to buy a Supreme — a Black one on top of that. There’s only two in stock and Harlan Crow owns half the inventory."
“We can all see Clarence Thomas but he belongs to billionaire Harlan Crow. And that’s what an NFT is."
“The only thing Ron DeSantis has done that I got to give him credit for. This boy got people riled up with stuff they can’t understand. They don’t know what critical race theory is. Got these people riled up about something that they can’t even define, like crypto or NFTs. Ask any Republican that’s anti-CRT … trying to explain CRT, they sound like a Democrat trying to explain the charges against Trump.”
And finally,
“You should be inspired by the events in France. They rioted when the retirement age went up two years to 64. … Meanwhile, in America, we have an 80-year-old man begging us for four more years of work.”
Biden's speech can be seen here; Wood's can be seen here.
