Michelle Wolf's White House Correspondents' Dinner Routine

Submission 16,890

Overview

Michelle Wolf's White House Correspondents' Dinner Routine refers to a stand-up comedy routine performs by comedian Michelle Wolf during the 2018 White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) dinner.

Background

On April 28th, 2018, Wolf delivered her stand-up routine at the WHCA dinner, during which she made several jokes about President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (shown below).

Developments

Online Reaction

That evening, former White House press secretary Sean Spicer tweeted "Tonight's #WHCD was a disgrace," which Wolf subsequently retweeted along with the reply "Thank you!" (shown below).^[2]

Meanwhile, New York Times journalist Maggie Haberman and Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski tweeted criticisms of Wolf's routine (shown below).

The following day, Twitter user @ProudResister^[7] tweeted a joke mocking Republican criticisms of the comedy routine (shown below). In the coming days, posts about the comedy routine reached the front page of the /r/politics,^[4] /r/The_Donald^[5] and /r/OutOfTheLoop^[6] subreddits.

Trump's Response

Also on April 29th, Trump tweeted that the dinner was a "big, boring bust" and that Wolf "really 'bombed'" (shown below).^[1]

WHCA Statement

That evening, WHCA president Margaret Talev released a statement about the controversy, condemning Wolf's performance for not being "in the spirit" of the event's "mission" (shown below).^[3]

2019 Correspondents' Dinner

On November 19th, 2018, the White House Correspondents' dinner announced the featured speaker for the 2019 dinner: author Ron Chernow. This would be the first time in 15 years that a non-comedian would host the event.^[8]

That day, Michelle Wolf responded to the WHCA's announcement. She wrote, "The @whca are cowards. The media is complicit. And I couldn't be prouder." The tweet^[9] received more than 9,700 retweets and 58,000 likes in two days (shown below, left).

The following day, Trump responded on Twitter.^[10] He wrote, "So-called comedian Michelle Wolf bombed so badly last year at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that this year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian. Good first step in comeback of a dying evening and tradition! Maybe I will go?" The tweet received more than 18,000 retweets and 97,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below, center).

On November 21st, Wolf responded to Trump by both criticizing Trump's response to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist murdered by government of Saudi Arabia, and Melania Trump's anti-bullying campaign Be Best. She wrote, "I bet you'd be on my side if I had killed a journalist. #BeBest." The tweet received more than 61,000 retweets and 282,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below).