01 May 2016•Update: 01 May 2016
By Kasim Ileri
WASHINGTON
In his eighth and final year at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, President Barack Obama targeted presidential candidates with a barrage of jokes.
Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who regularly attended the dinner over recent years, was not among the audience this time.
"Is he at home eating a Trump steak? Tweeting out insults to Angela Merkel? What is he doing?" Obama asked.
"I know I was a little late tonight," Obama added. "I was running on 'CPT,' which stands for 'jokes that white people should not make'."
The joke referred to a gaffe made by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio when he endorsed Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton earlier this month.
"Thanks for the endorsement, Bill," Clinton had told de Blasio at an event. "Took you long enough."
"Sorry, Hillary, I was running on C.P. time,” de Blasio replied, a term stands for ‘colored people’s time’ – a pejorative racial stereotype that African-Americans are unreliable and often late for appointments.
Obama also took a few moments to josh Democratic hopeful Bernie Sanders, who was at the dinner.
"Bernie, you look like a million bucks. Or to put it in terms you understand, you look like 37,000 donations of $27 each," Obama told him, referring to Sander’s huge number of small-amount donors.
The president ended his last White House Correspondents' Dinner with a thank-you to the press corps, and then two final words: "Obama out," leaving the floor to this year's host, comedian Larry Wilmore.
“In less than a year, you’ll be playing golf every day – so things won’t be that different,” Wilmore told Obama.
He also told the president not to leave behind any items related to his cultural background in the White House, saying that the next president moving in may be confused: “‘What’s cocoa butter?’”
“When it’s all said and done, after eight years in the White House, we are really going to miss Michelle,” he added.
