President Obama Gives His Last White House Correspondents’ Dinner Speech

2 minute read

President Obama delivered laughs in Washington D.C. at a dinner honoring journalists Saturday, jabbing the media and the 2016 presidential candidates.

Obama was giving his eighth and final White House Correspondents’ Assocation dinner and the president is known for his comedic delivery at the event, where he often pokes fun at himself and the year’s top headlines.

Front and center at this year’s dinner was the upcoming presidential election.

First up was Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who though behind front-runner Hillary Clinton has electrified young voters across the country, carrying several state primaries.

“Bernie, you look like a million bucks or to put in terms you’ll actually understand you look like 37,000 small donations of $27 each,” Obama said, adding a joke about his daughter Malia, 15, wanting to go to the music festival Burning Man. “Bernie might have let her go, not us.”

The Republican nomination fight took a hit, with Obama saying that things on the other side of the aisle were a bit more “loose” and cracking a joke about attempts to nominate House Speaker Paul Ryan, noting that steak and fish were the dinner options “and a whole bunch of you wrote in Paul Ryan.”

Obama questioned why Republican frontrunner Donald Trump wasn’t in attendance, referencing the time he roasted Trump at the 2011 dinner. “You know I’m going to talk about Trump, although I’m mad he’s not here, we had so much fun the last time,” he said. “Is this dinner too tacky for the Donald, what could he possibly be doing instead?”

Nightly Show host Larry Wilmore, this year’s host, joined in on the fun, earning laughs on everything from Harriet Tubman’s placement on the $20 bill to Trump.

“Guys I am not surprised Donald Trump is happening to America, because I watch movies, ” Wilmore joked. “Every time there’s a black president something always comes to destroy the Earth.”

The President concluded the speech by thanking the media and uttering a final good bye: “Obama, out.”

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