The second roast of Donald Trump

Read­ers who are reg­u­lar view­ers of Com­e­dy Cen­tral may recall that the net­work not long ago aired a roast of Don­ald Trump, the most recent in a series of pro­fan­i­ty-laced celebri­ty roasts that the Via­com sub­sidiary has sponsored.

Ear­li­er tonight, Trump was unex­pect­ed­ly roast­ed for a sec­ond time in as many months — except this time, it was Pres­i­dent Oba­ma doing the roast­ing, rather than the likes of Lisa Lam­pan­ell, at the 2011 White House Cor­re­spon­dents’ Dinner.

Here’s the rel­e­vant excerpt:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: There’s a vicious rumor float­ing around that I think could real­ly hurt Mitt Rom­ney. I heard he passed uni­ver­sal health­care when he was gov­er­nor of Mass­a­chu­setts. Some­one should get to the bot­tom of that… and I know just the guy to do it. Don­ald Trump is here tonight!

Now, I know that he’s tak­en some flak late­ly, but no one is hap­pi­er, no one is proud­er, to put this birth cer­tifi­cate mat­ter to rest than The Don­ald. And that’s because he can final­ly get back to focus­ing on the issues that mat­ter. Like, did we fake the moon land­ing? What real­ly hap­pened in Roswell? And where are Big­gie and Tupac?

All kid­ding aside, obvi­ous­ly, we all know about your cre­den­tials and breadth of expe­ri­ence. For exam­ple … no seri­ous­ly, just recent­ly, in an episode of Celebri­ty Appren­tice — at the steak­house — the men’s cook­ing team did not impress the judges from Oma­ha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around, but you, Mr. Trump, rec­og­nized that the real prob­lem was a lack of lead­er­ship, and so ulti­mate­ly, you did­n’t blame Lil Jon or Meat Loaf… you fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of deci­sions that would keep me up at night.

Well han­dled, sir! Well-handled!

Say what you will about Mr. Trump… he cer­tain­ly would bring some change to the White House. Let’s see what we’ve got up there.

The New York Times reports that Trump did not take kind­ly to the jokes.

It was almost painful to watch, the jux­ta­po­si­tion of the pres­i­dent, flex­ing his new post-birther com­e­dy chops, and the real estate mogul-cum-politi­cian, gri­mac­ing at his table as Mr. Oba­ma basked in his post-long-form-birth-cer­tifi­cate glow.

Maybe it was painful for the Times’ Helene Coop­er, who does­n’t like to see rich white guys being roast­ed, but I enjoyed watch­ing Trump’s dis­com­fort immense­ly when the C‑SPAN cam­eras panned to him. Trump deserved to be made fun of at length after all the sil­ly non­sense he’s spout­ed on radio, cable tele­vi­sion, and day­time talk shows. He was prac­ti­cal­ly ask­ing for a ribbing.

And he got one — both from the Pres­i­dent and from Sat­ur­day Night Live’s Seth Mey­ers, the evening’s head­lin­er. Seth was­n’t pulling any punch­es either:

SETH MEYERS: And then of course there’s Don­ald Trump. Don­ald Trump has been say­ing that he will run for pres­i­dent as a Repub­li­can, which is sur­pris­ing, since I just assumed he was run­ning as a joke.

Don­ald Trump often appears on Fox, which is iron­ic, because a fox often appears on Don­ald Trump’s head.

If you’re at the Wash­ing­ton Post table with Trump, and you can’t fin­ish your entrée, don’t wor­ry… the fox will eat it.

And if I can, for a moment, talk about the birther issue. When did we get so sus­pi­cious about where peo­ple were born?

A USA Today poll last week said thir­ty-eight per­cent of Amer­i­cans think the Pres­i­dent was def­i­nite­ly born in the U.S. In the same poll — in the very same poll — only five per­cent more said Don­ald Trump was def­i­nite­ly born in the U.S. Has it reached the point where Amer­i­cans only think some­one was born here if they saw it?

I know I was born here. And I know my younger broth­er was born here. But when it comes to my old­er broth­er… I can only take him at his word.

Gary Busey said recent­ly that Don­ald Trump would make a great pres­i­dent. Of course, he said the same thing about an old rusty bird­cage he found.

Don­ald Trump owns the Miss USA pageant, which is great for Repub­li­cans, because it will stream­line their search for a vice president.

Don­ald Trump said recent­ly he has a great rela­tion­ship with the blacks. Though, unless “the Blacks” are a fam­i­ly of white peo­ple, I bet he’s mistaken.

I like that Trump is filthy rich, but nobody told his accent. His whole life is mod­els and gold leaf and mar­ble columns, but he still sounds like a know-it-all down at the O.T.B.

Mr. Trump may not be a good choice for pres­i­dent, but he would def­i­nite­ly make a great press sec­re­tary. How much fun would that be?

[imi­tat­ing Trump]

Kim Jong-il is a los­er. His lat­est ral­ly was a flop. I feel bad for Ahmadine­jad. He nev­er… The man wears a wind­break­er. He has no class. I, on the oth­er hand, sell my own line of ties. You can find it at Macy’s. In the flam­ma­ble section.

Through it all, Trump sat stone-faced, intent­ly look­ing for­ward, but nev­er laugh­ing (or even look­ing relaxed) as he was pep­pered with zingers.

He evi­dent­ly was­n’t hap­py that he had become the butt of the night’s best jokes, even though he him­self agreed to Com­e­dy Cen­tral’s propo­si­tion to have some of the coun­try’s most foul-mouthed come­di­ans roast him some time ago.

Then again, being made fun of by Lisa Lam­pan­el­li isn’t the same as being made fun of by the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States in front of the White House press corps.

So now we know: Don­ald Trump can’t stand to be made fun of by peo­ple with more cred­i­bil­i­ty than him.

That does­n’t bode well for his sup­posed pres­i­den­tial aspirations.