The Megyn Kelly Show | Victor Davis Hanson Megyn Kelly is joined by Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and author of "The Counterrevolution," to discuss President Trump's appearance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, the absurd backlash to some of his jokes, the media's double standard on humor from political figures, and more.
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The speaker critiques the media's reaction to Donald Trump's jokes at the White House Correspondents Dinner, arguing that the press applies a double standard. While the media condemns Trump's \"fat jokes\" and jabs at journalists, the speaker contends that the left and mainstream media frequently use far more aggressive, personal, and even violent rhetoric without facing similar outrage.
I do want to talk a bit about what happened at the White House Correspondents Dinner
on Friday night. So good for him. He goes back into the lion's den. He knows they all hate him,
Victor. And among other things, he's getting a lot of crap, the president is, for the jokes
he told about Caitlyn Collins, who is never nice to the president. She's always nasty.
She's always making negative commentary about him. Her questions always have the most negative
bent you could possibly go into the questioning with.
So the president did what all presidents do. He got up there and he gave her a little
jazz, which is kind of what they do. But the press didn't like the way he did it, sought for.
But I want to personally congratulate CNN's Caitlyn Collins on receiving her award.
It was all about me. It's a fake. She shouldn't get the award. It was a fake, but I didn't mind.
I said, Caitlyn, congratulations. But it was fake. There's no question about it. But she's a
young, attractive woman. She never smiles. I said, Caitlyn, do you ever smile? Smile.
You have a nice position. You're at CNN Fake News. You should be a happy person. So smile,
Caitlyn, just smile. But we attack, and I thought Caitlyn had really made it big with a major new
sponsorship. But then I informed her that it wasn't her on the Bud Light can. It was Dylan Mulvaney.
Right. You're laughing. I'm laughing, too. It's funny. It isn't. It's clever because it
puts the left in such a difficult position, Victor, because they have to say that's not
complimentary. So they have to rip on a trans person, which they definitely don't want to do.
But on the other hand, it wasn't like Barack Obama after ordering 500 assassinations on the
Afghan-Pakistan border with predators and then three U.S. citizens. They probably deserved it,
but they were killed and there was no congressional authorization for any of that. Then he's at the
White House dinner. Obama did. And he said, you know, when guys come near my daughters,
I say to them, Predator, P-R-E-D-A-T-O. Remember that? And he was making fun of.
We have a little bit of that. Here's just a small clip of that.
The Jonas Brothers are here. They're out there somewhere. Sasha and Malia are huge fans,
but boys don't get any ideas. I have two words for you. Predator drones.
You will never see it coming. Yeah, they're laughing it up.
I love that one. Yeah, laughing it up. I mean,
these were terrorists, supposedly, but that was a decision he made. Judge, jury and executioner,
if you were anywhere near it, we just took them out. And, you know, here we are arguing,
I've been reading the media or saying things like, well, Trump may use a dual use target,
a bridge or a power plant in the next round. I'm thinking, well, yeah, that's what Obama did.
He went to Libya and bombed ports and facilities and Clinton bombed all the bridges on the Danube.
But this it's very asymmetrical, their morality. It's all transactional.
Yes. So they're also they're very unhappy. And then today he doubled down on his attack
against Caitlyn Collins by posting a meme of her her face on Dylan Mulvaney's body with those
Bud Light cans. Only she's smiling here. So they're horrified by that, too. He's put them
in a very difficult position because you basically have to say it's insulting to compare her to Dylan
Mulvaney. Why is it insulting? Because Dylan Mulvaney's a man. They just won't close that
circle. But we all know why they find it insulting. And they're also upset because
he's he referred to certain people as fat. It's kind of what Trump does. He's constantly making
fun of like he joked that next year, Chris Christie would be a part of a UFC fight against
J.B. Pritzker in the, quote, heaviest of the heavyweights division. They would be fighting
for a big piece of cheesecake, he said. He also said he was told to stop calling Pritzker fat,
but he can't help it. So they did not laugh, Victor. They did not think that was funny.
I know. They didn't seem to have much of a problem when it was Wanda Sykes up there
making inappropriate jokes about hoping Rush Limbaugh would die,
which Obama thought was funny. Here's 11. This is from 2009.
Rush Limbaugh, I hope the country fails. I hope his kidneys fail. How about that?
Obama's awesome. He needs a good water board, and that's what he needs.
So which is more offensive? You think it's funny that someone has hoped that Rush Limbaugh's
kidneys fail and that he dies, or that the president says these two guys are overweight
and should battle for a piece of cheesecake? Yeah, I mean, here's a president that had
three assassination attempts in which the Secret Service returned fire at the purported shooter.
And Robert De Niro says, I think he's on three times now on record of saying he wants to hit
the president in the face. Madonna said she wanted to blow up the White House. Kathy Griffin basically
wanted him beheaded. The Shakespeare in the Park, as I remember, made Shakespeare's Caesar
as Trump being stabbed by all of the conspirators. And then we had Snoop Dogg shooting him. I think
the celebrity chef Berdin said he would like to poison him. So that's okay. But they threatened
to kill the president, our top celebrities, and no one said a word. And then that was in a climate
that later, you know, if you were a leftist, you would say, you people lowered the bar of the
acceptable about killing the president, and therefore that you brought out all the nuts.
And you could say it about all the left. Chuck Schumer said, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, you sowed the
wind, you're going to reap the whirlwind. You don't know what's going to hit you. And then,
you know, a year and a half later, two years, an assassin shows up at Gorsuch's home. But they
never, it's all one way. And I think that's what, that drives Trump crazy. And he uses the word
fake news and he gets angry. And then they say he's not professional, but they're very sober and
judicious and they do really terrible things. And they think that the, I guess it's the method and
the methodology is more important to them than the message. So if you can say you want to kill
Trump, but you have a title and you're sober and you do it in a very professional manner,
then it's okay. But if it's never the content, it's the manner and who you are and how you do it.
Trump doesn't care.
But think about this, where's their outrage about Anthony Fauci lying to them for months and years?
About Anthony Fauci leading to all those deaths, about Anthony Fauci
literally resulting in the abuse, the serial abuse of children who weren't allowed to go to
school or learn or play basketball or, you know, etc. Get fat, who are getting fat because they
weren't allowed to exercise, which is very bad for kids. Where's their outrage about that,
as opposed to dumb fat jokes at the White House Correspondents Dinner?
Here's what we saw. CNN had like a little running ticker on the side of its presidential feed
with their little comments. And here's Brian Stelter. I'm sure a few, it's hard to read.
I'm sure a few of his jabs will travel well on social media. But the fat jokes in quotations
just seemed sad. Then you get MS Now, Trump made a mockery out of the White House Correspondents
Association, Washington Post. Trump's insult-laden speech to press dinner draws mostly stunned
silence. The Washington Post tweeted out, he told a sex joke and several fat jokes.
He called Senator Adam Schiff watermelon head. Who cares, what is that? He went on long tangents.
President Trump's speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner swerved between
jokes that fell flat and flat out insults. Well, yeah, I mean, of course they fell flat in front
of this crowd, which is probably why Trump won't do it again because they're not in good humor
about themselves. That's the last group of things that they could laugh about.
Now, they only laugh when somebody that they despise is on the other end of the receiving end.
The funny thing about it is they make jokes all the time about Trump's weight. They always say
that he's an 80-year-old near-oxygenarian, and he eats Big Macs, and he's overweight,
and they have all their cartoons. His skin color and his hair.
His hair, everything about him. They all show that he's a wreck. I can remember that Bandy Lee
said he was crazy and he needed intervention. We remember that Andrew McCabe and Ron Rosenstein
were going to tape him because they found out that they said they could prove he was mentally
ill. They talked about doing that. That was the whole idea, that he was out of shape,
that he was going to die any day. Just the other day, I saw some media person said he wears diapers,
he smells, he's too heavy. They do that all the time, and they don't do it just in an occasion.
They do it as part of the normal news reporting or interviewing. The only good thing about it is
I think we're at peak media turnoff, and I think most people are fatigued by them now.
They just think, you know what, we don't care what you say about Trump. Maybe some of it's true,
maybe some of it's not, maybe exclude here and there, but we don't care anymore because
you're totally discredited. We don't listen to you anymore.
Don Lemon was on the receiving end of the most gentle Trump barb ever. He passingly called him
low IQ. That's okay. That's a day ending in Y for Trump if he doesn't like you or if he's pissed
off at you. Lemon felt the need to respond, VDH, and I feel the need to give a viewer warning here.
He responded from his bed wearing no clothes. Let's see. Let's check in because of course,
God forbid he not use the moment to make it about himself and paint himself as though he were the
star of Trump's remarks. Here it is. So it's Friday night. I'm in bed. I'm trying to chill,
and then my phone starts blowing. We're all here. We're all hanging out,
like going to bed, having a quiet Friday night, and my phone starts blowing up.
People are saying some old man is on television, feeble old man ranting about you.
Well, it turns out it's Donald Trump. That's who it is. Donald Trump talking about me at the White
House Correspondent Center. Donald Trump, I'm not even in the room. Why are you talking about me
instead of making things better for the average American? Why aren't you doing that? Why aren't
you trying to get us out of a war that you started? Why aren't you trying to get us out of
these high gas prices? Do something to help people instead of ranting about me. Why are you so
obsessed with me? No wonder people ask me if you're going to run for president,
because I'd certainly be a better one than you. I wouldn't be obsessed with you.
He's obsessed with himself. He's obsessed with himself. It's so silly. He starts saying that
Trump is obsessed with him, and then he starts talking about himself that he's going to run
for president. He would be a better president, and then suddenly the whole thing's about him,
as it always is. Yeah, that's who he's obsessed with.
Why are you so obsessed with me? My God, that's his go-to perceived clever remark
whenever anybody talks about him. Trump, that's what he does. He gives it back to journalists
who give it to him. That's one of his signatures, and they can't stand it.
We really, really value your input and your support. We may not always agree,
but we are always going to talk about it and respect. No BS, no agenda, no fear.
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