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Michelle Wolf’s White House Correspondents’ Roast Of Sarah Sanders Is Being Criticized As Too Harsh

If you missed Michelle Wolf’s appearance at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner, you missed what might be the most buzzed about appearance since Seth Meyers hosted in 2011 and Stephen Colbert in 2006. Both of those garnered reactions for being “infamous” and “too biting,” but Wolf’s material might have them beat based on the early reactions. Her performance did not hesitate to call out people in the room, particularly Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and didn’t attempt to clean up for the audience.

The Washington Post noted that Wolf “didn’t win over the room of some of Washington’s best-known journalists, politicians and a slightly less celebrity-filled roster of guests,” but the same can’t be said about the people who watched online and outside of the room.

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One of the more prominent voices to criticize Wolf’s performance — and praise Sanders — was New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman who felt that Wolf’s jokes hit too hard on the Press Secretary’s looks:

Others felt similar, especially those on CNN immediately following Wolf’s appearance, but the comedienne was quick to respond to these types of criticism on Twitter:

She also took notice of former Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s comments about the dinner:

And of course, the president had to make a comment about the dinner he skipped out on for another one of this shout rallies, this time in Michigan:

But Wolf had plenty of defenders out there and they were willing to look past the apparent vulgarity to point out the reasons for Wolf’s appearance and the positive aspects of it. Some like Keith Boykin pointed to the president’s own comments and past history to question how some can be outraged now after having ignored the past:

Others showed that Wolf used her time on the stage to speak for people who weren’t there, giving everybody a taste of a medicine they clearly didn’t enjoy.

And Charlotte Clymer points to the real meat of Wolf’s appearance and how it stands as the type of appearance that should be expected in today’s political environment:

Meanwhile, the president missed another dinner and made his return to Washington in the middle of the night. Both are worthy of note, just to cap off the absurdity of the moment: