Trump veered on and off his prepared script for the evening, at one point calling it a “fricking stupid speech.”
The fraught event put the president on the dais with reporters who have covered him aggressively. Trump rarely speaks to audiences that aren’t packed with his supporters, leading to an unusual dynamic in a ballroom of reporters who are professionally bound to maintain poker faces.
Some of his first jokes drew laughs, including one that acknowledged the interrupted first run of the meal.
“I hope that everyone finally got to enjoy their entire, very delicious beef tenderloin, very special beef. And I want you all to know that Bobby Kennedy, who’s right here, personally ran over the cow with his car,” he said.
But the tone quickly shifted to a far more caustic attack on his favorite foils, including some of the reporters in the room. The bitterness was sharper even than some of his political rallies, where attacks on his enemies are leavened with boasts of his accomplishments. On Friday, he had little to sell, and a lot to complain about.
He said that he had once mixed up CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins, whom he said “never smiles,” with a transgender social media personality, Dylan Mulvaney, after he called the 34-year-old cable news star a “young, attractive woman.”
He said he planned to host twice-weekly fights at the White House.
“We will have sloppy Chris Christie, one of the sloppiest human beings, fighting,” Trump said to silence. “I could mention the governor of Chicago, but I’m going to mention instead Jerry Nadler. Oh my God! They’re fighting for a big piece of cheesecake, big fat piece of cheesecake.”
Then he told a joke about Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California).
“I hate some people,” he said to groans. “He’s a liar, and I called him watermelon head because he has the largest head I’ve ever seen with the smallest neck, pencil neck. How does that make a fat, ugly head on a little pencil neck?”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick laughed at that one, putting his hand on his forehead.
“This night is all about the First Amendment. Tonight was a full display,” CBS chief White House correspondent Weijia Jiang said after Trump finished talking. As the outgoing president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, Jiang led the event. She complimented Collins and a Wall Street Journal reporter whom Trump also attacked during his speech.
