Hasan Minhaj Delivers (and Then Some [and Even More]) as Host of 2017 White House Correspondents’ Dinner

President Trump Will Break Tradition and ‘Chicken Out’ of the White House Correspondents Dinner

April 30, 2017

cnn, daily show, free speech, msnbc, trump, whca, whcd, white house correspondents association, white house correspondents dinner

It was only a year ago that Hasan Minhaj was at a different podium as host of the RTCA Dinner (the “JV nerd prom”?), delivering a set that was both unapologetic in its clever barbs as well as heartfelt in its message.

Most RTCA Dinner hosts don’t get to graduate to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner the very next year. Then again, these are times that are often without precedent.

Hasan Minhaj, as we’ve seen him do time and time again as a stand-up, storyteller, and a correspondent on The Daily Show, dished out his finely detailed jokes last night with a certain brutal grace and was more on point than several WHCD hosts before him. Had this been the Obama Administration, we think Hasan might have not had trouble following him like other comedians have had over the years.

Don’t be surprised if Hasan ends up getting his very own show soon from this performance.

Thus far, Trump has not tweeted about the happenings of the WHCD dinner directly, but we can imagine that it might include something like “Sad!” a few dozen times.

So, for free speech, for free press, for comedy, and for all of our sanity, you now might want to watch and enjoy Hasan at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

« March 2021 »

February 26, 2017

Uncategorized

not attending, op ed, trump, whcd, white house correspondents association

Let’s be honest though– he’ll probably watch the hell out of it and live tweet it too.

Though Trump is breaking yet another POTUS tradition, the announcement that he’ll not be attending the annual White House Correspondents Dinner (that’s effectively a presidential roast) comes with little surprise.

Dozens and dozens of times, President Trump has demonstrated that he can’t stand the parody and satire done of him. On top of that, Trump’s war on the mainstream media, including the recent ‘gaggle’ on the NY Times, Politico, BuzzFeed, CNN, and others, and kicking off his 2020 reelection campaign paints Trump as someone who can’t handle criticism at almost any level.

Unfortunately, the criticism probably isn’t going to stop and, in turn, his whining as being depicted as an awful president probably won’t stop either. Even if his approval ratings reached new lows (they already have by the way) or he got impeached, we’d bet that Trump would never admit that he did what could be described as a “bad job”.

Teddy Roosevelt said it best regarding this matter: “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American Public.”

Again, it’s not shocking that he won’t be going to the WHCD, but it’s still regrettable.

He could do a sliver of good for his image if he sat down and took the scorching jokes that he deserves right on the chin just like President George W. Bush did when Stephen Colbert hosted the WHCD back in 2006.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders remarked on Trump not attending the event, “I think its kind of naïve of us to think that we can all walk into a room for a couple of hours and pretend that some of that tension isn’t there,” she continued. “One of the things we say in the South, if a Girl Scout egged your house, would you buy cookies from her? I think this is a pretty similar scenario.”

Unlike the Girl Scouts of America, being the President of the America comes with the territory of millions of people hating you in some way, shape or form every single day (even if you’re a well liked Commander in Chief).

One should note that The White House Correspondents Dinner has a secondary function of exhibiting and celebrating the importance of freedom of speech and a free press, as guaranteed in our Constitution. The President attending, no matter if they’re popular or not, is a renewed vote of confidence in those sacred ideals.

With no President there, it would seem that Trump doesn’t really think such things matter that much.