Trump bombed at the White House Correspondents' Dinner — and proved its point

U.S. President Donald Trump bombed at the White House Correspondents' Dinner Friday night. He knew he was bombing, too, and he even tried to meta-joke his way out of it. But no. Even the president's jokes about his bad jokes fell flat, and he was widely ridiculed for the comedy routine afterward. Members of the media mocked the leader's dismal performance on live TV and all across the internet. In a rambling hour-long speech, Trump insulted journalists by name, repurposed old nicknames for political opponents, made a strange number of fat jokes that weren't funny at all, and sounded mad at his unnamed writers for giving him weak material to work with. 'Does anyone understand this stuff? I don't,' Trump said at one point, acknowledging the jokes were not landing. It was a bit of an understatement: The room's reaction ranged from a few reluctant chuckles to an uncomfortable silence to audible groans. Some audience members were seen checking their phones or staring blankly ahead. Media figures posted real-time reactions on social media, many expressing shock at how poorly the speech was being received. The WHCA dinner, billed as a celebration of the First Amendment, inadvertently became a demonstration of it: a president gave a widely-panned speech, and the people he was speaking to covered it, mocked it, and analyzed it in real time.