Comedian Michelle Wolf performs during a gig in New York City on June 29. Wolf asked Saturday night whether the media is "obsessed with Trump." | Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Hilarity For Charity Wolf routine stuns White House Correspondents' Dinner Trump administration officials walk out as comedian attacks Sarah Huckabee Sanders and others, delivering a harsh, risque performance in the president's absence. 
 
 Members of the Trump administration walked out of the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday night after comedian Michelle Wolf ripped into White House staffers, including press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, in the absence of the president himself. 
 
 A year after the White House boycotted the annual dinner — and with President Donald Trump holding a competing campaign-style rally in Michigan — director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp and her husband, conservative activist Matt Schlapp, were among those who marched out of the ballroom at the Washington Hilton long before Wolf's keynote routine was over. 
 
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 Footage broadcast live on cable TV networks showed Sanders sitting at the head table on stage stone-faced, wincing and at times raising her eyebrows as Wolf compared her to a character on the dystopian TV series "The Handsmaid's Tale" and to an "Uncle Tom" for white women. 
 
 "I actually really like Sarah. I think she's very resourceful. But she burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smokey eye," Wolf joked about Sanders. "Like maybe she's born with it; maybe it's lies. It's probably lies." 
 
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 It was a risque and uneven routine at first met with laughs but often greeted by awkward silence. Wolf laced into the president and repeatedly brought up his comments from the "Access Hollywood" tape. The performance evinced memories of the 2006 dinner, at which Stephen Colbert savagely satirized the Bush administration. 
 
 Wolf opened her act with the line, “Good evening, here we are at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Like a porn star says when she’s about to have sex with Trump, let’s get this over with,” the first of many bawdy insults. 
 
 
 
 Wolf's other targets included Vice President Mike Pence, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, and the president's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. 
 
 But much of the room went silent with Wolf's personalized attacks — and an abortion joke that wasn't well received — and after the Comedy Central comedian joked that she wished a tree would fall on Conway, adding that she did not hope that the White House aide would get hurt, but only "that she would get stuck." 
 
 "It’s why America hates the out of touch leftist media elites," Mercedes Schlapp wrote on Twitter afterward. 
 
 Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer deemed the evening a "disgrace" in a tweet, to which Wolf replied: "Thanks!" 
 
 Echoing Spicer, former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus called Wolf's set "R/X rated" and said the performance left Trump as the clear winner. 
 
 An R/X rated spectacle that started poorly and ended up in the bottom of the canyon. Another victory for @realDonaldTrump for not attending and proving his point once again. The room was uncomfortable. Trump lovers and even a large number of Trump haters were pretty miserable. — Reince Priebus (@Reince) April 29, 2018 
 
 New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who was honored during the dinner for her reporting, said Sanders' refusal to walk out amid the barbs 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," Haberman wrote on Twitter. 
 
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 While the harshest barbs were reserved for the administration, Wolf also lit into the news media. 
 
 "You guys are obsessed with Trump. Did you used to date him? Because you pretend like you hate him, but I think you love him," Wolf said. "I think what no one in this room wants to admit is that Trump has helped all of you." 
 
 Refusing to attack print media, because "it's illegal to attack an endangered species," Wolf poked at Fox News for the network's ousting of hosts for sexual harassment allegations, CNN for "breaking news" and MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski for showing what it's like "when 'Me Too' works out." 
 
 While Trump pilloried the "dishonest" media at his rally in Michigan, White House officials had mingled with the Washington press corps, in marked contrast with last year's event. White House aides said on the red carpet before the dinner that they were attending with Trump's blessing. 
 
 Sanders, Conway, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and many others attended, alongside former White House officials including Priebus, Spicer and National Economic Council chair Gary Cohn. 
 
 For the second year in a row, Trump avoided one of the annual highlights for a profession he has routinely called "the enemy of the American people." Many representatives of what he has termed the "fake news media" accepted awards for their stories detailing the chaos inside the president's administration. 
 
 Last week, Trump slammed Haberman, who was honored with the association's Aldo Beckman Memorial Award, as a "Crooked H flunkie who I don’t speak to," after she co-bylined a piece reporting that Cohen, his longtime personal attorney, might flip on him following an FBI raid on his properties. 
 
 CNN journalists Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, Jake Tapper and Carl Bernstein were honored for breaking the story that intelligence community had briefed then-President Barack Obama and later President-elect Donald Trump on some of the salacious details contained in the infamous Russia dossier compiled by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele. Trump has repeatedly denied the claims in the dossier and has called the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election a "witch hunt." 
 
 Trump's animosity toward the event is believed to stem from a ribbing delivered to the reality TV star and real estate magnate from the podium in 2011 by Obama and comedian Seth Meyers, who heaped scorn on Trump for his questioning Obama's status as a U.S. citizen. 
 
 White House Correspondents' Association President Margaret Talev said, "We reject efforts by anyone, especially our elected leaders, to paint journalism as un-American." 
 
 "An attack on one journalist is an attack on us all," added Talev, a Bloomberg reporter and CNN analyst. 
 
 Begun in 1921, the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner has been attended by every president at least once during their term in office, beginning with President Calvin Coolidge in 1924. In recent years, A-list celebrities like Will Smith, Morgan Freeman, Emma Watson and Charlize Theron have traveled to Washington to participate. This year was largely devoid of stars, although high-profile attendees included comedian Kathy Griffin, director Rob Reiner, the former Olympic gymnast Jordyn Wieber and Baltimore Orioles Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson. 
 
 The brunches and parties held throughout the weekend often create interesting mixes: This year, onetime White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci was pictured on social media joking with Michael Avenatti, who represents adult film star Stormy Daniels in a dispute over an alleged hush-money payment arranged by Cohen. Avenatti also posted about his conversation at a pre-party with Conway, a fellow George Washington law school alum. Avenatti said on CNN before the dinner that his encounter with Conway was "spirited." 
 
 Perhaps the biggest question of the night before Wolf's performance was whether Trump would one day take his turn at the head table. 
 
 "We’ll see what happens,“ Sanders said. "There’s always a chance." 
 
 That chance seems a little slimmer now after Wolf's bruising routine. ||||| Comedian Michelle Wolf's biting routine at Saturday's 2018 White House Correspondents' Association dinner has triggered one of Washington's most recurring conversations: Is one night of pomp and politics worth the headaches that usually follow? 
 
 Almost immediately after Wolf, best known as a correspondent on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah," left the stage at the Washington Hilton, those who pack into the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room on a daily basis began to distance themselves from her performance. A number of journalists deemed her act too caustic. 
 
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 "The spirit of the event had always been jokes that singe but don’t burn. Reporters who work with her daily appreciate that @presssec was there," NBC News White House correspondent Kelly O'Donnell wrote on Twitter. 
 
 As consternation over Wolf's jokes continued, White House Correspondents' Association president Margaret Talev said the comedian's monologue "was not in the spirit of that mission," on a night when the association wanted promote a unifying message. 
 
 "Last night's program was meant to offer a unifying message about our common commitment to a vigorous and free press while honoring civility, great reporting and scholarship winners, not to divide people," Talev said in a statement to the White House press corps. 
 
 The outgoing president of the WHCA, Talev said the organization is committing to hearing from members about format of the dinner going forward. 
 
 President Donald Trump said Sunday evening that the dinner "a total embarrassment to everyone associated with it" and that it is time to change the format or kill it entirely. For the second straight year, the president skipped the gathering instead holding a campaign-style rally, this time in Michigan. 
 
 "The White House Correspondents’ Dinner was a failure last year, but this year was an embarrassment to everyone associated with it," the president tweeted. "The filthy “comedian” totally bombed (couldn’t even deliver her lines-much like the Seth Meyers weak performance). Put Dinner to rest, or start over!" 
 
 At its core, the dinner is supposed to be a celebration of the First Amendment, an opportunity to laud the young journalists who have won the association's scholarships, and a place to applaud the current journalists whose work illuminates the public's understanding of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. 
 
 “My goal in putting together last night's dinner was to unify the room and the country around journalism and the First Amendment, and I shared what I believe about those subjects in my own remarks,” Talev, a Bloomberg correspondent and president of the association, told POLITICO earlier. 
 
 “The association, by tradition, does not preview or censor the entertainer's remarks,” Talev continued. “Some of them made me uncomfortable and did not embody the spirit of the night. And that is protected by the First Amendment. I appreciated Sarah Sanders for joining us at the head table and her grace through the program.” 
 
 A persistent criticism of the glitzy dinner is that it fuels perceptions of excessive chumminess between members of the press and the government officials they’re expected to hold accountable, a rationale that prompted The New York Times to back out more than a decade ago. But some journalists feared that Saturday’s dinner could lead to a different perception, of being seen as the opposition to the president. 
 
 “If the #WHCD dinner did anything tonight, it made the chasm between journalists and those who don't trust us, even wider,” tweeted Meg Kinnard, a South Carolina-based reporter for The Associated Press. “And those of us based in the red states who work hard every day to prove our objectivity will have to deal with it.” 
 
 New York Times White House reporter Peter Baker concluded on Twitter after the event, “Unfortunately, I don't think we advanced the cause of journalism tonight.” And Baker suggested in a reply to comedian Kathy Griffin that he’d “vote to leave the comedy acts to comedy shows and stick to journalism at journalism dinners.” 
 
 "First Amendment would probably be OK without the dinner," CNBC's John Harwood added. 
 
 Amid the backlash, some of Wolf's fellow comedians came to her defense, praising the boldness of her approach. 
 
 "Few people go to DC and accomplish what they set out to do while staying true to themselves," Meyers, the 2011 dinner host, wrote on Twitter. "@michelleisawolf is one of those people." 
 
 If Washington can't take a joke, ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel added, it should look elsewhere for future entertainment. 
 
 "Dear "the media" - @michelleisawolf was FUNNY," Kimmel, the 2012 host, wrote on Twitter. "Hire a juggler next year." 
 
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 Controversies emanating from the evening are nothing new. 
 
 In 2006, “Colbert Report” host Stephen Colbert stayed in character as he scorched President George W. Bush and his administration (along with the press for its coverage during the run-up to the Iraq War). Years later, Colbert said people still ask him what Bush, who was seated just steps away, told him after the routine. 
 
 In 2016, comedian Larry Wilmore ended his jokes by saluting President Barack Obama, who was attending his final WHCD in office, with "Yo, Barry, you did it, my n---a. You did it." After the hand wringing over his use of the N-word, Wilmore defended his decision, saying he was trying to take back a word that had been used to denigrate black men for centuries. 
 
 But Saturday was supposed to be different. 
 
 In 2017, Trump became the first president since Ronald Reagan in 1981 to skip the gathering (although Reagan, who was recovering from an assassination attempt, still called in) and not a single Trump White House aide attended. This year, though, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders sat at the head table, and counselor Kellyanne Conway told reporters beforehand that Trump had encouraged his staff to attend. 
 
 "He encourages us to have fun," Conway told CNN before the festivities began. 
 
 "Tonight’s #WHCD was a disgrace," former White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Twitter afterward. 
 
 White House director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp and her husband, conservative activist Matt Schlapp, walked out early. “Enough of elites mocking all of us,” he tweeted. (Still, the Schlapps later attended NBC and MSNBC’s after-party.) 
 
 Former chief of staff Reince Priebus characterized the event afterward on Twitter as “another victory for @realDonaldTrump for not attending and proving his point once again.” 
 
 For the second year, Trump skipped the dinner and counterprogrammed it by holding a rally in which he vilified the “dishonest” and “phony” press and portrayed journalists as opposed to his presidency. 
 
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 While Wolf certainly had tough words for Trump, her jokes about Sanders' appearance and comparison to an "Uncle Tom" for white women left many journalists uneasy. 
 
 "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," New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman wrote on Twitter, a feeling many of her colleagues echoed. (“She killed her own message,” freelance journalist/author Seamus McGraw wrote of Wolf’s routine.) 
 
 Wolf replied to Haberman that the Sanders “jokes were about her despicable behavior” rather than her appearance. 
 
 In a later exchange with MSNBC's "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski — who said, “Watching a wife and mother be humiliated on national television for her looks is deplorable” — Wolf questioned why everyone was focusing their critiques on what she said about Sanders' appearance. 
 
 "Why are you guys making this about Sarah’s looks? I said she burns facts and uses the ash to create a perfect smoky eye," Wolf wrote on Twitter. "I complimented her eye makeup and her ingenuity of materials." 
 
 For all the early recriminations, some journalists and liberal commentators wondered whether journalists understood that the evening was intended to be in jest, and that the administration remains deeply unpopular. 
 
 “How self-regarding do you have to be to invite a comedian & then get upset that she makes jokes about the rich, famous, powerful people in the room?” tweeted The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald. “And how irrational do you have to be to think a comedian at a DC event is supposed to be reverent & sober in *the Trump era*?” 
 
 "I don’t think you fully appreciate the resentment towards media for normalizing the WH’s behavior," long time Hillary Clinton aide Philippe Reines wrote on Twitter, in reply to CNN's Jeff Zeleny and Baker. "There’a [sic] no greater example than Sanders mocking you daily for the whole country to watch." 
 
 Comedians have long complained that pleasing the audience at the Washington Hilton is a near-impossible task, leading Griffin to suggest it might be better for everyone just to have a "boring" evening. 
 
 "If you want to focus on the journalism, do a boring awards show. Journalism is all about the 1st Amendment," Griffin wrote on Twitter. "If you don't see the import of what @michelleisawolf did tonight, then you don't get it." ||||| Michelle Wolf won't be making any jokes from the podium at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, but last year's host was ready with a one-liner after the president attacked her on . 
 
 Donald Trump, who bashed Wolf relentlessly for her performance at last year's dinner, returned to the theme on Tuesday night after it was reported the annual event would ditch the tradition of having a comedian next year. 
 
 "So-called comedian Michelle Wolf bombed so badly last year at the White House Correspondents' Dinner that this year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian," Trump tweeted. "Good first step in comeback of a dying evening and tradition! Maybe I will go?" 
 
 So-called comedian Michelle Wolf bombed so badly last year at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that this year, for the first time in decades, they will have an author instead of a comedian. Good first step in comeback of a dying evening and tradition! Maybe I will go? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018 
 
 The comedian fired back on Twitter, "I bet you'd be on my side if I had killed a journalist. #BeBest," she wrote, in a nod to Trump's support of the Saudi explanation for the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. 
 
 I bet you'd be on my side if I had killed a journalist. #BeBest https://t.co/bZ91Cg0QCr — Michelle Wolf (@michelleisawolf) November 21, 2018 
 
 The #BeBest hashtag is a reference to Melania Trump's campaign against cyberbullying. 
 
 Trump did not attend last year's White House Correspondents' Dinner, but sent press secretary Sarah Sanders in his stead. Wolf, a stand-up comic and former writer for "The Daily Show" and "Late Night with Seth Meyers," ripped Sanders, referring to her as Aunt Lydia, the villain in "The Handmaid’s Tale," and saying "she burns facts, and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye." 
 
 Some took issue with the "smoky eye" comment especially, saying it was a criticism of her appearance. 
 
 Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images 
 
 Wolf did not back down from criticism, telling NPR's "Fresh Air" in May, "I wouldn't change a single word that I said." 
 
 The White House Correspondents' Association announced Monday they will instead host a speech by presidential biographer Ron Chernow. Chernow will speak about the First Amendment. 
 
 "The White House Correspondents' Association has asked me to make the case for the First Amendment and I am happy to oblige," Chernow said in a statement. "Freedom of the press is always a timely subject and this seems like the perfect moment to go back to basics." 
 
 Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP 
 
 The show has traditionally featured comedians taking jabs at the current president. Comedians such as Meyers, Jay Leno, Stephen Colbert, Wanda Sykes and Hassan Minhaj all have taken their place at the podium. 
 
 Prior to Trump skipping out on the 2017 and 2018 affairs, Ronald Reagan was the last president to miss the dinner in 1981 as he was recovering from an assassination attempt. 
 
 The dinner is not scheduled to take place until April 27, 2019.
– "Good evening, here we are at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner; like a porn star says when she’s about to have sex with Trump, let’s get this over with." Thus began Michelle Wolf's White House Correspondents' Dinner monologue, one that Politico terms "bruising" and Reince Priebus calls an "R/X rated spectacle that started poorly and ended up in the bottom of the canyon." While President Trump again skipped the political-media spectacle, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was at the head table to represent the White House; Wolf showed no mercy, saying, "We are graced with Sarah's presence tonight. I have to say I'm a little star struck. I love you as Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid's Tale." More burns, also via CNN: "I actually really like Sarah. I think she's very resourceful. But she burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smokey eye." "Mr. President, I don't think you're very rich. Like, you might be rich in Idaho, but in New York, you're doing fine." "It's 2018, and I'm a woman so you cannot shut me up. Unless you have Michael Cohen wire me $130,000." "Mike Pence is what happens when Anderson Cooper isn't gay." CNN has a list of everyone targeted by Wolf here.