Cecily Strong takes aim at lawmakers, media at WHCD
Comedienne Cecily Strong had few friends and a seemingly endless list of targets at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Saturday night, taking various shots at politicians and members of the media.
“It’s great to be here at the Washington Hilton – is something a prostitute would say to a congressman,” Strong said in one of her stronger laugh lines in the packed room. “If these walls could talk, they would probably say, ‘Clean me.’ ”
“Just because Aaron Schock resigned doesn’t mean that there are not any smoking-hot congressmen left,” she said later. “I mean, looking out tonight I see so many 10s – well, Washington 10s; New York 4s. Indiana 30s?”
{mosads}Following President Obama’s remarks, Strong, best known as a cast member on “Saturday Night Live,” took to the stage with a nod at Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
“It feels right to have a woman follow President Obama, doesn’t it?” she asked.
Strong at times took a very personal tone, especially with Republicans, joking, “I guess the most surprising thing is that a guy named Tom Cotton is a U.S. senator and not a rabbit from an old, racist Disney cartoon,” to which Obama beamed.
“In Tom Cotton’s defense, he was just trying to repair America’s strained relationship with Israel,” she said of Cotton leading a GOP effort to send a letter to Iran warning a deal over its nuclear program would not stand after Obama leaves office.
“He [Cotton] doesn’t need to worry about that; our relationship will be better in the next administration, just as soon as Israel makes a generous donation to the Clinton Foundation,” Strong said, referring to the recent scrutiny of its foreign donations.
She also told an awkward joke comparing another recent controversy over Clinton’s use of multiple devices for email while secretary of State to a sex contract signed by characters in “50 Shades of Grey.”
During one portion of her speech that was seemingly panned by the media-dominated and stone-faced crowd, Strong berated a slew of media outlets, saying it was “ridiculous” that in 2015 “we still have TV characters like [CNN host] Don Lemon,” that “even [MSNBC’s] call letters are long-winded” and of recently lost Fox News viewers: “May they rest in peace.”
“What can I say about Brian Williams? Nothing, because I work for NBC,” the “SNL” star said, laughing.
Noting she was the first straight woman to host in 20 years, she said: “We finally made it, straight people.”
Strong wrapped up her speech by turning to “my leader, the person I’m so glad is in the White House – Michelle Obama.”
Then giving her attention to the president, she added, “Thank you so much for taking time away from being on ‘Jimmy Kimmel’ to be here.”
Some of Strong’s best lines:
– On her ambiguous ethnicity: “I’m sort of a mashup of all the people in Hillary Clinton’s announcement video.”
– The Secret Service: “The only law enforcement agency in the country that will get in trouble if a black man gets shot.”
– Talking to Obama: “Your hair is so white now, it can talk back to the police.”
– Joking that Amtrak has its own massage seats: “All you have to do is sit in front of Joe Biden. Those hands don’t get tired.”
– Strong said she wouldn’t tell lawmakers how to govern. “That would be like you guys telling me what to do with my body.”
– On presidential contender Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) prospects: “He didn’t get elected, but at least he rand.”
– The podcast Serial answered the question: “What would it be like if somebody whispered an episode of ‘Dateline?’ “
– “If anyone is guilty of taking ISIS too lightly, it’s him,” she said, gesturing toward Obama.
Updated at 1:02 a.m.
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