(CNN)The White House Correspondents’ Association is the newest front in President Donald Trump’s long-running war with the media.
Twenty-four hours after comedian Michelle Wolf ripped into Trump and his aides on national television, Trump said the annual correspondents’ dinner was “an embarrassment.” He called Wolf’s stand-up act “filthy.”
That’s unlikely to happen. But the association did issue a rare statement on Sunday night expressing regret about Wolf’s performance.
The association’s president, Margaret Talev, did not apologize, as some Trump allies and Washington journalists wanted, but she said the roast wasn’t in keeping with the group’s mission.
“Last night’s program was meant to offer a unifying message about our common commitment to a vigorous and free press while honoring civility, great reporting and scholarship winners, not to divide people,” Talev said. “Unfortunately, the entertainer’s monologue was not in the spirit of that mission.”
But others are defending Wolf and saying she spoke truth to power. The debate is a microcosm of ongoing arguments over the proper tone of Trump White House criticism.
Wolf’s raunchy routine, which included jabs at White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway and the news media itself, was met with…
