Michelle Wolf calls criticism over White House Correspondents' Dinner 'very un-American': 'People got mad because I did my job'
Michelle Wolf is tired of talking about the White House Correspondents’ Dinner controversy, but she was asked about it — again — in a new interview, and she didn’t hold back.
During a chat with GQ, the comedian was asked her views about the drama now that six months have passed. As the featured entertainer during the April 2018 event, the former correspondent of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show delivered 20 minutes of blistering jokes about Democrats, Republicans, Trump, Trump’s adult kids, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway and — perhaps most memorably — White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.
“More than anything, I just think of it as a job I was hired to do, one I did a really good job at, and then people got mad because I did my job,” Wolf told the mag, “which seems very un-American. You know, like, if you don’t want that dinner to be a roast, then don’t hire a comedian to roast people. Especially not in this environment where things are so tense. Don’t get a comedian, because we’ll go for the jugular.”
Wolf said her performance wasn’t thrown together — and the material she didn’t use was far worse than what she did use.
“I took [my jokes] to the Comedy Cellar starting a month before the dinner,” she said. “And I ran it probably 40 times. That’s how I would prepare for any set, because I wanted to prepare the same way I would for a special or a late-night spot or something like that. My set changed so much within that period of time. I mean, the jokes I didn’t do. … People could have legitimately got mad at the jokes I didn’t use.”
Wolf infamously compared Sanders to a ruthless figure in the dystopian show The Handmaid’s Tale and made a remark about her appearance. This led to President Trump attacking Wolf on Twitter — and the show being revamped so that there won’t be a comedian, as is the tradition, next year. Wolf, who immediately after the show said she “wouldn’t change a single word” of her set, called the White House Correspondents Association “cowards” on Nov. 19 for changing the format of the show.
Wolf, who saw her Netflix show The Break With Michelle Wolf canceled by Netflix over the summer, hasn’t backed down regarding her opinions about the Trumps either (see: Michelle Wolf compares Ivanka Trump to herpes) and has continued to feud with the president. When he recently called her a “so-called comedian” and said she “bombed” at the dinner, she had some fighting words in response.
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
Of course, her response was in reference to Trump’s statement that the U.S. would back Saudi Arabia even if Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was proven to have ordered the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Wolf also referenced first lady Melania Trump’s anti-bullying #BeBest campaign.
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