The president’s annual speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner might be gross (even when the president is as good at the speech as Obama) and a sign of the unhealthy chumminess between the media and the politicians they cover, but that doesn’t mean the whole event should be canned. The greatest thing about the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual self-high-five are the guest speakers, especially when they aren’t afraid to speak truth to power and deliver pointed remarks at the powerful people in the room—both politicians and the media. Stephen Colbert infamously roasted George W. Bush in 2006, and although the current host of his old Comedy Central time slot, Larry Wilmore, wasn’t nearly as brutal in taking down Obama at last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, he did get in a few strong jabs on the president while also eviscerating the catastrophic state of news today. It’s very telling that the president can take jokes about him murdering people with drones better than so-called journalists can handle being called a drone. You can watch Wilmore’s full remarks above, but here are our favorite lines from his twenty-minute speech.
1. “It looks like you’re really enjoying your last year of the presidency. Saw you hanging out with NBA players like Steph Curry, Golden State Warriors. That was cool. It kind of makes sense, too, because both of you like raining down bombs on people from long distances.”
2. “Welcome to Negro Night here in Washington, or as Fox News will report, ‘Two Thugs Disrupt Elegant Dinner in DC’.”
3. “I am a black man who replaced a white man who pretended to be a TV newscaster, so in that way Lester Holt and I have a lot in common.”