Distorted Right Wing Attacks On Michelle Wolf–What She Really Said (Including Full Transcript)

Donald Trump has a long history of insulting anyone who displeases him, including the handicapped, immigrants, Muslims, and gold star families. He has quite frequently attacked the appearance of women. However, Trump cannot take it when he is the target of mere jokes. For the second straight year he was unwilling to attend the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. Conservatives who have often defended Trump’s attacks on others, responded by attacking Michelle Wolf. Frequently the attacks were not for her actual jokes but were based upon distorting what she actually said.

A satiric roast at a dinner such as this would be expected to be far harder on its targets than would be expected in normal political discourse. Comedians are expected to push the boundaries, cross lines, and make people feel uncomfortable. Jokes about Trump are naturally going to include lines about prostitutes and grabby pussy, because this is what Donald Trump, not Michele Wolf, brought to Washington.

Wolf’s actual jokes were far less offensive than many of the things we hear from Trump and his allies. As Wolf’s actual act was tamer than they are, the right attacked by distorting what she actually said. It was reminiscent of past attacks from the right on others such as David Letterman.

The main line of the attacks was to falsely claim that Wolf attacked Sarah Sanders’ looks. This falsehood was often spread by taking a line out of context, making it appear she was joking about Sanders’ eye as opposed to joking about her lying. Her full joke regarding this was, “I actually really like Sarah. I think she’s very resourceful. She burns facts, and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Like maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s lies. It’s probably lies.” Even quoted out of context, “smoky eye” is hardly a terrible attack.

Wolf did briefly mention Mitch McConnell’s neck and Christ Christie’s weight, but I haven’t seen complaints about these, and these are common laugh lines for the late night comics. The only woman whose looks were mocked by Wolf were her own, when she referred to her own frizzy hair and small tits.

Wolf was interviewed by NPR and defended what she said:

I think people have a lot of preconceived notions about Sarah’s looks and I think a lot of what’s happening is they’re projecting onto this joke. … I think it’s clear that the joke wasn’t about Sarah’s looks, but I don’t think — to me it’s so obvious that I don’t even really need to defend it. I think if you listen to the joke you’ll understand that it’s about the fact that she lies and if it’s taken another way I think you should go back and listen to it again. …

If there [are] two people that I actually made fun of their looks on Saturday it was Mitch McConnell and Chris Christie and no one is jumping to their defense. I made fun of Mitch McConnell’s neck and I did a small jab at Chris Christie’s weight and no one is jumping to their defense.

Late night comedians did come to her defense, including Stephen Colbert reliving his old conservative character:

“She is filthy and she is mean — which is what we love about her. Because those are wonderful qualities for comedians, and terrible qualities for free-world leaders.” — SETH MEYERS, comparing Michelle Wolf with President Trump

“Michelle should have had the decency not to comment on women’s appearances in any way, shape or form. She’s a comedian, for God’s sake, not the president.” — TREVOR NOAH

“This is the correspondents’ dinner, celebrating the freedom of speech; you can’t just say whatever you want!” — STEPHEN COLBERT

“I am so proud, right down to the breastbone, that the press is defending her despite the fact that her boss joked about throwing reporters in jail. That’s the kind of comedy the press likes!” — STEPHEN COLBERT, on Sarah Huckabee Sanders

The best defense of much of the criticism I’ve heard about the speech is to hear what she actually said. The video is above, and full transcript follows:

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Late Night Comedians Mock Trump For Claiming He Would Enter School During Shootings

Donald Trump claims he would go into a school where there is a shooter to protect the kids, even if unarmed. Nobody seems to believe him (other than perhaps his delusional base). Eli Rosenberg has described his actual record of appearing cowardly in response to danger. Late night comedians took the opportunity to mock him.

Stephen Colbert (video above) said, “There’s a lot in there that I doubt, but the part I really don’t believe is that he can run.” Colbert also said, “Look, sir, we already know how you react to combat situations. You got five deferments from Vietnam. What are you gonna do, run in there and stab ’em with your bone spurs?”

Seth Meyers took A Closer Look (video above) said:

There’s really nothing worse than a fake tough guy. Trump lives in a fantasy world where he’s some sort of action movie star who’d rush into danger and save the day.

I’m sorry but you’re not exactly Liam Neeson, If you’d been in the movie Taken, they would’ve had to change the name.” The name he suggested was, My Daughter’s Gone, Let’s Move On. 

Meyers also said, ““I gotta say, I find it hard to believe Trump would voluntarily run inside a place of education. The only way you would run inside is if a reporter asked you a question outside.”

Trevor Noah (video above) said, “It would be ridiculous coming from anyone, but especially from Trump. He’s gonna run in? Yo, when Trump ran for president, that was the first time he ran in his entire life.” Along these lines Noah also  said, ““Really? Trump cares so much about helping people that he’d jump into the middle of a school shooting with nothing but his fun-size fists?”

Noah mocked the idea with this suggestion for how it might have played out:

To be fair if Donald Trump ran into a school during a shooting, I do believe he would stop the shooting. Imagine you’re a school shooter and Donald Trump appears in the hallway — how distracting would that be?

That’s right, it’s me, Donald Trump. I don’t have a gun, but what I do have is an amazing electoral college victory. Then, like eight minutes later, the police show up and Trump is still talking.

It is hard to believe that Donald Trump would face actual gunfire, as Hillary Clinton claims she faced sniper fire when she flew into Bosnia in 1996. Check out the video of Clinton facing sniper fire from Funny or Die:

Mediaite Listing Of Most Influential In Media Shows How Pathetic Our Media Is

Mediaite has presented their list of Most Influential In Media In 2017. It suggests a very sorry state of our mass media if these are really the most influential, especially when looking at the page with their top five.

Leading the list is Fox & Friends Co-hosts Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade

They top the list because of Donald Trump being such a big fan. Trump, who often repeats what they say and praises them on Twitter, also congratulated them for this today.

They are followed by Jeff Zucker of CNN. While CNN is hardly the strongest source of serious journalism, unless you are interested in the latest plane crash, at least this is better than the biased media in the rest of the top five.

Sean Hannity comes in third followed by Matt Drudge.

There is finally a voice from the left at number five. Unfortunately it is Rachel Maddow, who has jumped the shark and gone full Glenn Beck, with her hysterical coverage of Russia conspiracy theories, going far beyond the evidence. As Norman Solomon wrote, “Joe McCarthy never did it better.”

Glancing through the rest of the list, while we don’t have Jon Stewart around anymore, other late night comedians did relatively well with Jimmy Kimmel at 23 and Stephen Colbert at 24. Unfortunately Bill Maher, who has abandoned his more independent thought and now follows the Democratic Party line, beats them at 20. John Oliver is at 33. Trevor Noah is at 73 and Samantha Bee is 74th.

Right after Kimmel and Colbert is Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks at 25.

I’m surprised that they only ranked Steve Bannon at 45, although the loss by Roy Moore did not help him.

Quote of the Day: Trevor Noah On Bernie Sanders’ Grammy Nomination

“So Bernie Sanders is in the running for a Grammy, and you know right now someone at the D.N.C. is going, ‘All right guys, how do we rig this for Hillary?’” — Trevor Noah after Bernie Sanders  received a Grammy nomination for  the audio book version of his book, Our Revolution.

Late Night Comedians On Donald Trump Declining To Throw First Pitch

This might not be the most important way in which Donald Trump has varied from the norms for a president, but it did receive attention when he declined to throw the ceremonial first pitch. The Washington Post reported:

Presidents have regularly thrown out the ceremonial first pitch on Opening Day for Washington’s major league team going back more than a century, but the tradition will not resume this year. The Nationals invited President Trump to do the honors on Monday afternoon, when the team opens its 2017 season at Nationals Park against the Miami Marlins, but the White House declined the invitation on Tuesday, citing a scheduling conflict, according to Nationals spokeswoman Jen Giglio.

Late night comedians responded:

“President Trump turned down a chance to throw out the opening day pitch for the Washington Nationals. Turned it down! For some reason, Trump doesn’t want to be surrounded by a bunch of large Hispanic men holding baseball bats.”–Conan O’Brien

“The White House says President Trump will not throw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals game. Apparently Trump was afraid of hurting his tweeting arm.” –Jimmy Fallon

“Donald Trump does not know how to throw a baseball. That’s what’s going on here…Which is weird. He also doesn’t know how to run a country but he’s not embarrassed to try that….

“I bet a Trump pitch would get about as far as his healthcare bill. You know, just drop halfway down to the plate. And then he’d blame Paul Ryan.”–Trevor Noah

“Today we learned that Trump is violating another norm because he won’t throw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals’ opening day. I don’t know why. Maybe he’s worried his hands are too small to palm a baseball…

“Here we go, America! Trump won’t throw out the first pitch. What else? He won’t go to the Correspondents’ Dinner. He won’t release his tax returns. He won’t put his business in a blind trust. He doesn’t want to live in D.C. What presidential tradition will Trump abandon next? This Thanksgiving, those turkeys better run.”–Stephen Colbert

Daily Show & Saturday Night Live Mock Clinton, Trump, Carson, and Sanders

Trevor Noah mocked Hillary Clinton for three of her recent gaffes last night, including her bizarre view of history at Nancy Reagan’s funeral:

Clinton’s revisionist assertion — made at Nancy Reagan’s funeral last week — that the Reagans started a national dialogue about AIDS earned her zero points. Instead, Noah said, “The correct answer was any other combination of words.”

“There are so many nice things she could have said about Nancy Reagan, but for some reason she brought up the worst thing,” he continued. “Hillary, you need the LGBT community. They’re the people who started the discussion on AIDS. And because they’re active Democratic voters, they should be your natural ally.”

He also mocked Clinton for denying Bernie Sanders’ role in supporting health care reform in the 1990’s with a picture of Sanders literally standing right behind her, and for telling coal miners she would be putting them out of work, as opposed to saying they would be getting better jobs in renewable energy.

Saturday Night Live showed how Clinton panders to voters by pretending to be a progressive, often copying ideas from Bernie Sanders. She transformed into Sanders during the course of the mock commercial. It ends with, “I’m whoever you want me to be, and I approve this message.”

The cold open on Saturday Night Live began with a mock news report on Ben Carson’s endorsement of Donald Trump, but also included reaction from Larry David as Bernie Sanders. The skit mocked both Sanders and his supporters:

“I want to thank everyone who voted for me, and apologize to everyone else for making your Facebook feed so, so annoying,” Sanders says after CNN’s Jake Tapper (played by Beck Bennett) congratulates him.

“I mean, I love my supporters, but they’re too much, right?” he continues. “I’m great, but I’m not ‘five posts a day’ great. With all due respect to my supporters: Get a life.”

Tapper points out that, Facebook enthusiasm aside, Sanders is still trailing his rival Hillary Clinton, who’s got the advantage in both delegates and “mediocre” superdelegates.

“I have the voters,” Sanders assures Tapper in the clip. “My message is resonating with a very diverse group of white people. And I’ve got supporters of all ages — 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds… eh, that’s it.”

Previous visits by Larry David impersonating Bernie Sanders can be seen herehere and here.

An expanded version has been cross-posted at The Moderate Voice which includes several jokes from late night comics on the candidates, which have also been previously posted here.