President Obama mostly poked fun at conservatives in his address at the White House Correspondents Dinner, but he took aim at a few liberals, too.
“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,” he said in a reference to Hillary Clinton, who is several weeks in to her presidential bid.
Obama also gave a poke to Bernie Sanders, who is known as one of the most liberal Democrats in Congress and who is said to be weighing a presidential run as well.
“I like Bernie, Bernie’s an interesting guy,” he said. “Apparently some folks really want to see a pot-smoking socialist in the White House, we could get an Obama third term after all.”
It was Obama’s seventh speech at the annual dinner, where Washington journalists, politicians, policymakers and Hollywood celebrities gather in what’s become known as “nerdprom.” Comedian Cecily Strong, a cast member of Saturday Night Live, delivered the keynote address after Obama finished his.
The president spent some of his speech mocking the GOP presidential candidates, especially for their continuing opposition to gay marriage.
Rick Santorum has said he wouldn’t attend a gay wedding of a loved one, Obama noted. “To which gays and lesbians around the country responded: That won’t be a problem,” he deadpanned.
In a similar dig at Indiana’s new religious freedom law — that could give business owners a legal defense should they refuse certain services to gay couples — he said he’s become so close to Vice President Joe Biden that “at some places in Indiana they won’t serve us pizza anymore.”
Obama got lots of laughs from the crowd when he made fun of House Republicans, who invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give a speech to Congress earlier this year against the wishes of the White House.
Making fun of how much he’s aged during his two terms, Obama said he looks so old that House Speaker John Boehner “has already invited Netanyahu to speak at my funeral.”
