President Barack Obama’s famous rebuke Donald Trump in April 2011 during the annual Dinner for White House Correspondents. The reality show star had repeatedly and falsely claimed that Obama was not born in the United States and therefore was not eligible to become president.
Trump’s demands for Obama to release his birth certificate had, in part, made Trump a front-runner Republican hopefuls for their party’s nomination in next year’s presidential elections.
Obama alluded to Trump’s presidential ambitions by joking that if elected, Trump would bring some with him changes in the White House.
Obama then drew attention to a satirical photo for the guests to see a renovated White House with the words ‘Trump’ and ‘The White House’ in large purple letters, followed by the words ‘hotel’, ‘casino’ and ‘golf course’.
A projected image is shown on a large screen during President Barack Obama’s speech at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Gala at the Washington Hilton hotel, Washington, DC, on April 30, 2011. The president showed off his humorous side to show what a “Trump” White House could look like. [Photo: Martin H Simon/UPI/Shutterstock]
Obama’s mockery of Trump that evening is attributed Inspire Trump to run for the 2016 presidency.
My book, The art of the political putdownincludes Obama’s rebuke of Trump at the correspondents’ dinner to show how politicians use humor to establish superiority over a rival.
Obama’s mockery humiliated Trump, who previously temporarily abandoned the birther conspiracy breathe new life into it. But Trump may have had the last laugh by capitalizing on that night’s humiliation, as some believe: as motivation in his bid for president in 2016.
Demolition of the East Wing of the White House continues for construction of US President Donald Trump’s proposed new ballroom, on October 26, 2025, in Washington, DC [Photo: Al Drago/Getty Images]
There’s another twist in Obama joking about Trump’s renovations to the White House if Trump were to become president. Trump has more or less fulfilled Obama’s prediction.
The Trump administration has done that the East Wing destroyedwhich is adjacent to the White House, and will replace it with a 90,000-square-foot gold-inlaid ballroom that appears to mirror its ostentatious appearance the president’s taste.
The $300 million ballroom will be double size of the White House.
President Donald Trump speaks with photos of the new ballroom during a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on October 22, 2025. [Photo: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post/Getty Images]
It is expected to be large enough to house almost a thousand people. Design renderings suggest the ballroom will look like the ballroom at Mar-a-Lagothe president’s private estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
‘I have no plans to name it after myself’ Trump said recently. “That was fake news. I’m probably going to call it the Presidential Ballroom or something like that. We didn’t really think about it still have a name.”
But high officials told ABC News that they were already calling the structure “the President Donald J. Trump Ballroom.”
The renovation will not include a hotel, casino or golf course, as Obama said in his light-hearted speech at the 2011 Correspondents Dinner.
Obama makes fun of Trump
In the months before the 2011 correspondents’ dinner, Trump had repeatedly claimed that Obama was not born in Hawaii but was born instead outside the United States, perhaps in his father’s home country of Kenya.
The baseless conspiracy theory was such a distraction that Obama abandoned his long birth certificate in April 2011.
Three days later, Obama delivered his speech at the correspondents’ dinner with Trump in the audience, where he said that after putting the birther conspiracy behind him, Trump could move to other conspiracy theories such as claims that the moon landing was staged, aliens landed in Roswell, New Mexico, or the unsolved murders of rappers Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur.
‘Did we simulate the moon landing??” said Obama. “What Really Happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?
Obama then joked about Trump’s reality show, The Apprentice, and referred to how Trump, who owned hotels, casinos and golf courses, might renovate the White House.
When Obama finished, Seth Meyers, the dinner host, made more jokes at Trump’s expense.
“Donald Trump has said he will run as a Republican – which is surprising since I just assumed he was. run like a joke”, said Meijers.
Trump has the last laugh
New Yorker magazine writer Adam Gopnik recalled watching Trump as the jokes continued to come at his expense.
“Trump’s humiliation was just as absoluteand as visible as I have ever seen: his head in place, like a man in a pillory, he hardly moved or changed his facial expression as wave after wave of laughter hit him,” Gopnik wrote. “There was no trace of feigning good humor about him.”
Roger Stone, one of Trump’s top advisers, said Trump decided to run for president after feeling he had been publicly humiliated.
“I think this is the night he decides to run for president” Stone said in an interview with the PBS program Frontline. “I think he’s motivated by it a little bit. “Maybe I’ll just run. Maybe I’ll show them all.’”
If Stone and other political observers are right, Trump sought the presidency to avenge that humiliation.
“I thought, ‘Oh, Barack Obama begins something I don’t know if he’ll be able to finish,” said Omarosa Manigault, a former Apprentice contestant who became Trump’s director of African American outreach during his first term.
“Every critic, every detractor will have to bow down to President Trump,” she said. “It’s everyone who’s ever doubted Donald, the one who disagreed, the one who challenged him…it is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe.”
The notoriously thin skinned Trump was not present the White House Correspondents’ Dinner during his first presidency. He also did not attend the dinner during the first year of his second presidency.
Although Trump never publicly acknowledged the importance of that event in 2011, a number of people have noted how crucial it was, demonstrating how repression can be a powerful weapon in politics — perhaps even tearing down the East Wing of the White House.
Chris Lamb is a professor of journalism at Indiana University.
This article is republished from The conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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