Here Are Obama’s Best Jokes From the Sizzling White House Correspondents’ Dinner

Obama roasts Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and ponders being a “couch commander.”


 

At his final White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday night, President Barack Obama walked onstage to Anna Kendrick’s song “You’re Going to Miss Me When I’m Gone,” and smirked as he told the audience, “You know it’s true.”

He mused about what he’ll do once he becomes “couch commander” after his presidency and received both boos and applause when he hinted at who may take the stage as president at next year’s Correspondents’ Dinner. “It’s anyone’s guess who she will be,” he said.

See the video below. Obama’s remarks start at 2:35:00.

The president complimented Bernie Sanders’ “Feel the Bern” movement, and he teased Hillary Clinton’s struggle to attract young voters. He compared her tactics to a “relative who just signed up for Facebook.”

Republicans got the worst of the roast, of course. Obama couldn’t resist poking fun at Ted Cruz’s “basketball ring” mishap in Indiana, and he dismissed candidates who “didn’t poll high enough to earn a joke.”

Toward the end of the speech, Obama faked out the audience by wrapping things up without talking about Donald Trump. But later he took swings at the GOP front-runner’s previous ties with Miss Universe, and he said Trump may have an advantage in closing Guantanamo Bay because of Trump’s experience “running waterfront properties into the ground.”

Obama left the stage with two words: “Obama out.” Then he appropriately dropped the mic.

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We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. The deadline’s almost here. Please help us reach our $150k membership goal by May 31.

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