“Daily Show” alum Michelle Wolf wasted no time skewering the Donald Trump administration at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, even ripping into press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders — who was sitting on the dais just feet away.
“I have to admit I’m a little starstruck,” Wolf said in her remarks. “Sarah, I love you as Aunt Lydia in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’”
She didn’t stop there. “Every time Sarah steps up to the podium, I get excited, because I’m not really sure what we’re gonna get,” she said. “You know, a press briefing, a bunch of lies, or divided into softball teams.”
At another point, she said of Sanders, “What’s ‘Uncle Tom’ but for white women who disappoint other white women?”
For the second straight year, President Trump declined to attend the annual event, a charitable dinner to celebrate journalists and the First Amendment.
But Wolf did not stint on her criticism of the president. The show opened with a satirical animated sketch by Stephen Colbert before Wolf began her monologue with an opening shot: “Like a porn star says when she’s about to have sex with a Trump, let’s get this over with.”
She continued her verbal assault. “I know as much as some of you might want me to, it’s 2018 and I’m a woman so you cannot shut me up…unless you have Michael Cohen wire me $130,000. Michael, you can find me on Venmo under my porn star name, Reince Priebus,” she joked.
Wolf also needled members of the media in the room. “You guys love breaking news, and you did it, you broke it,” she said of CNN. “The most useful information on CNN is when Anthony Bourdain tells me where to eat noodles.”
Wolf’s often raunchy routine earned mixed reviews, including from New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman — whom Trump himself dismissed as “third rate” in a tweet earlier this month.
Haberman, who said she did not attend the dinner but watched on TV, offered praise for Huckabee Sanders. “That [she] sat and absorbed intense criticism of her physical appearance, job performance, and so forth, instead of walking out, on national television, was impressive.”
That @PressSec sat and absorbed intense criticism of her physical appearance, her job performance, and so forth, instead of walking out, on national television, was impressive.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 29, 2018
You can watch Wolf’s full routine above.