President Donald Trump used a rambling, roughly hour-long speech at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Friday to savage members of the media and make a series of crude, often poorly received jokes about critics and Democrats.
At one point, the president openly complained about the “frickin’ stupid speech that they wrote” for him to offer the crowd, after a bizarre sex joke didn’t earn many laughs.
Despite ending his routine by claiming he was the “most open and transparent” president in history who had “tremendous respect” for journalists, the Republican mostly railed against the gathered members of the Washington press corps.
He kicked things off by jokingly complaining about a group of Wall Street Journal reporters who won awards at the dinner for their coverage of the Trump-Epstein saga, reporting that inspired the president to launch an unsuccessful $10 billion defamation suit.
“All these awards,” Trump said. “Do I have a say?”
The president reserve the worst of his ire for CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, though, repeating his frequent demand that she “smile” more when she covers him.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated with new information.
