President Obama at White House Correspondents' Dinner

President Obama at the 2015 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington, D.C. April 25, 2015.

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.