The President, often criticized for his caution, is now doing things his own way.
He's cut a climate deal with China, he's issued an immigration order
We'll see how far he can take it.
Music: ♪ I don't care. I love it. ♪
Good evening everybody.
Welcome to the White House Correspondents' Dinner,
the night when Washington celebrates itself.
Somebody's gotta do it.
And welcome to the fourth quarter
of my presidency. It's true. I –
That was Michelle cheering.
Fact is I feel more loose and relaxed than ever.
Those Joe Biden shoulder massages, they're like magic.
You should try one.
Oh, you have.
I am determined to make the most of every moment I have left.
Now after the midterm elections, my advisers asked me,
"Mr. President, do you have a bucket list?"
And I said, "Well I have something that rhymes with 'bucket list.' "
Take executive action on immigration?
Bucket.
New climate regulations?
Bucket.
It's the right thing to do.
And my new attitude is paying off.
Look at my Cuba policy.
The Castro brothers are here tonight.
Welcome to America, amigos.
Que pasa?
What? It's the Castros from Texas?
Oh.
Hi Joaquin. Hi Julian.
Anyway.
Being president is never easy.
I still have to fix a broken immigration system,
issue veto threats, negotiate with Iran,
all while finding time to pray five times a day –
which is strenuous.
And it is no wonder the people keep pointing out how the presidency has aged me.
I look so old,
John Boehner's already invited Netanyahu to speak at my funeral.
Meanwhile, Michelle hasn't aged a day.
I asked which is strenuous.
I asked her what her secret is.
She just said, "Fresh fruits and vegetables."
It's aggravating.
Fact is though, at this point, my legacy is finally beginning to take shape.
The economy is getting better.
Nine in 10 Americans now have health coverage.
Today, thanks to Obamacare, you no longer have to worry
about losing your insurance if you lose your job.
Your welcome, Senate Democrats.
Now, look,
it is true I have not managed to make everybody happy.
Six years into my presidency, some people still say
I'm arrogant and aloof – condescending.
Some people are so dumb.
No wonder I don't meet with them.
And that's not all people say about me. A few weeks ago, Dick Cheney says
he thinks I'm the worst president of his lifetime.
Which is interesting, because I think
Dick Cheney is the worst president of my lifetime.
That's quite a coincidence.
I mean everybody's got something to say these days.
Mike Huckabee recently said people shouldn't join our military
until a true conservative is elected president.
Think about that. It was so outrageous,
47 ayatollahs wrote us a letter
trying to explain to Huckabee how our system works.
It gets worse.
Just this week, Michele Bachmann actually predicted
the I would bring about the biblical end of days.
Now that's a legacy.
That's big.
I mean, Lincoln, Washington, they didn't do that.
But, you know, I just had to put this stuff aside,
I've got to stay focused on my job, because for many Americans,
this is still a time of deep uncertainty. For example, I have
one friend – just a few weeks ago, she was making millions of dollars a year,
and she's now living out of a van in Iowa.
Meanwhile, back here at our nation's capital, we're always dealing with new challenges.
I'm happy to report that the Secret Service, thanks to some excellent
reporting by White House correspondents,
they're really focusing on some of the issues that have come up,
and they finally figured out a foolproof way to keep people off my lawn.
It works.
And it's not just fence jumpers. Some you know that a few months ago, a drone crash-landed
out back. That was pretty serious. But don't worry. We've installed a new
state-of-the-art security system.
You know what? Let me set the record straight.
You know, I tease Joe sometimes. But he has been at my side
for seven years. I love that man. He's not just a great vice president,
he is a great friend. We've gotten so close, in some places in Indiana
they won't serve us pizza anymore.
I want to thank our host for the evening,
a Chicago girl, the incredibly talented Cecily Strong.
On Saturday Night Live, Cecily impersonates CNN anchor
Brook Baldwin, which is surprising, because usually the only people impersonating
journalits on CNN
are journalists on CNN.
ABC is here with some of the the stars from their big new comedy
Blackish. Hey –
it's a great show. But I have to give ABC fair warning.
Being Blackish only makes you popular for so long.
Trust me.
There's a shelf life to that thing.
As always, the reporters here had at a lot cover over the last year
here on the East Coast. One big story was the brutal winter.
The polar vortex caused so many record lows, they
renamed it MSNBC.
But, of course, of course, let's face it, there is one issue on every reporter's mind,
and that's 2016.
Already, we've seen some missteps. Turns out Jeb Bush's identified himself as
Hispanic back in 2009.
Which, you know –
look – I understand. It's an innocent mistake.
Reminds me of when I identified myself as American, back in 1961.
Ted Cruz said that denying the existence of climate change made him like Galileo.
Now that's really an apt comparison.
Galileo believed the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Ted Cruz believes the Earth revolves around Ted Cruz.
I, I – and this is an aside. I want to point out that when a guy
who has his face on a hope poster calls you self-centered,
you know you've got a problem.
The narcissism index is creeping up a little too high.
Meanwhile Rick Santorum announced that he would not attend
the same sex wedding of a friend or a loved one –
to which gays and lesbians across the country responded,
"That's not gonna be a problem." Don't sweat that one."
And Donald Trump is here –
still.
Anyway.
It's amazing how time flies. Soon the first presidential contest will take place.
And, I, for one, cannot wait to see who the Koch brothers pick.
It's exciting.
Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker.
Who will finally get that red rose?
The winner gets a billion dollar war chest.
The runner-up gets to be The Bachelor on the next season of The Bachelor.
But seriously.
A billion dollars! From just two guys!
Is it just me, or does that feel a little
excessive? That's almost insulting to the candidates.
The Koch brothers think they need to spend a billion dollars to get
folks to like one of these people.
It's gotta hurt their feelings a little bit. And look, I know I raised a lot of money too. But
in all fairness, my middle name is Hussein? What's their excuse?
The trail hasn't been easy for my fellow democrats either. As we all know, Hillary's
private emails got her in trouble.
Frankly, I thought is was going to be her private Instagram account that was gonna cause her bigger problems.
Hillary kicked things off by going completely unrecognized
at a Chipotle. Not to be outdone,
Martin O'Malley kicked things off by going completely unrecognized at a
Martin O'Malley campaign event.
And Bernie Sanders might run.
I like Bernie. Bernie's an interesting guy.
Apparently, some folks really want to see a pot-smoking socialist in the White House.
We could get a third Obama term after all.
It could happen.
Anyway, as always, I want to close on a more serious note.
You know, I often joke about tensions between
me and the press. But honestly, what
they say doesn't bother me. I understand we've got an adversarial system.
I'm a mellow sort of guy. And that's why I invited
Luther, my anger translator to join me here tonight.
LUTHER: Hold on to your lily-white butts.
In our fast-changing world, traditions like the White House Correspondents'
Dinner
are important. LUTHER: I mean really! What is this dinner?
And why am I required to come to it?
Jeb Bush, do you really want to do this? Because in spite of our differences,
we count on the press to shed light on the most important issues of the day.
Now we can count on Fox News to terrify old white people with some nonsense,
Sharia law is coming to Cleveland! Run for the damned hills!
Y'all's ridiculous. We won't always see eye to eye.
Oh, and CNN, thank you so much for the wall-to-wall
ebola coverage. For two whole weeks, we were one step away from
the Walking Dead! And then y'all got
up and just moved on to the next day. That was awesome!
Oh, and by the way, just, have you noticed? You don't have ebola.
But I still deeply appreciate the work that you do.
LUTHER: Y'all remember when they had that big ole hole in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico? And then
I plugged that? Remember that? Which
Obama's Katrina was that one? Was it 19,
or what, what, was it 20? Because, I, I can't remember. OBAMA: Protecting our democracy
is more important than ever. For example, the Supreme Court ruled that the donor who
gave Ted Cruz
6 million dollars was just exercising free speech.
LUTHER: Yeah, it's the kind of speech like this: "I just wasted 6 million dollars."
And it's not just Republicans.
Hillary will have to raise huge sums of some money, too.
LUTHER: Oh yeah!. She goin' get that
money. She goin' get all
the money!
Khaleesi is coming to Westeros!
Watch out. Whoa!
The non-stop focus on billionaire donors creates real problems
for our democracy. LUTHER: And that's why we're running for a third term. No, we're not.
LUTHER: We're not? Who the Hell said that?
But we do need to stay focused on some big challenges –
like climate change. LUTHER: Hey, listen, y'all. If you haven't noticed, California is bone dry! It looked like a
trailer for the new Mad Max movie up in there. Y'all think that Bradley Cooper can't hear because he wants to talk to Chuck Todd?
He needed a glass of water! Come on!
The
science is clear.
The science of clear. Nine of the ten hottest years
ever came in last decade. LUTHER: Now I'm not a scientist, but I do know how to count to ten.
Rising seas, more violent storms – LUTHER: You got mosquitoes.
sweaty people on the train stinking it up,
It's just nasty. I mean,
look at what's happening right now. Every serious scientist says we need to act.
LUTHER: Yeah. The Pentagon says it's a national security risk.
Miami floods on a sunny day, and instead of doing anything about it, we've got elected officials throwing
snowballs in the Senate.
LUTHER: Okay, okay, I think I got it, bro. OBAMA: It is crazy!
What about our kids? What kind of stupid, short-sighted
irresponsible – the
What? With all due respect, sir? You don't need an anger translator.
You need counseling. So, I'm I'm I'm out of here, man, I'm
not trying to get in all this. OBAMA: Go.
Luther, my anger translator, ladies and gentlemen. Now that I got that off my chest.
You know, investigative journalism,
explanatory journalism,
journalism that exposes corruption, injustice,
that gives voice to the different and the marginalized,
the voiceless, that's power.
It's a privilege. It's as important to America's
trajectory, to our values, our ideals, than anything
we could do in elected office. We remember journalists we lost
over the past year, journalists like Stephen Sundlof,
James Foley, murdered for nothing more than trying to shine a light
into some of the world's darkest corners.
We remember the journalists unjustly imprisoned around the world, including
our own Jason ??.
For nine months,
Jason has been imprisoned in Tehran for nothing more than writing about the
hopes
and the fears of the Iranian people, carrying their stories
to the readers of the Washington Post, in an effort to bridge our common humanity.
As was already mentioned, Jason's brother Ali is here tonight
and I have told him personally we will not rest until we bring him home
to his family safe and sound.
These journalists
and so many others view their work as more than just a profession, but as a
public good,
an indispensable pillar of our society. So I want to give a toast
to them.
I raise a glass
to them and all of you in the words of the American foreign correspondent Dorothy
Thomspon.
It is not the fact of liberty, but the way in which liberty
is exercised that ultimately determines whether
liberty itself survives. Thank you for your devotion.
For exercising our liberty, and for telling our American story.
God bless you. God bless the United States of America.