President Donald Trump faced backlash Saturday after critics accused him of recycling a joke that had circulated online for decades during his speech Friday at the White House Correspondents' Dinner.
During the event, Trump joked about a text message a senator apparently received from his wife, who said, “when you get home, I want you to immediately come up the stairs and make love to me.” Trump then recalled that the senator said “I can’t do both.”
As flagged by the progressive media organization MeidasTouch, Trump’s joke – which the president later claimed to have thought was “the only thing good in this whole frickin’ stupid speech they wrote” – had existed for decades.
“Trump (well, his writers) recycled this joke,” reads a Saturday post from MeidasTouch’s X account. “It appeared in a Brad Paisley song released in 2007, a Tampa Tribune article back in 2000, and has been shared numerous other times on the Internet throughout the years.”
The recycled material was just one part of what reviewers widely panned as a flop performance. CNN reported that Trump bombed at the dinner, even attempting to meta-joke his way out of it, though his self-deprecating jokes also fell flat.
Writer Nick Bryant summed up the reaction bluntly on X.
"I don't think anybody would label him the comedian-in-chief. Excruciating to watch," Bryant wrote.
In his rambling remarks, Trump insulted journalists by name, repurposed old nicknames for political opponents, and made a string of fat jokes that fell flat, and at points appeared to grow frustrated with his own writers over the material he'd been given.
Trump (well, his writers) recycled this joke. It appeared in a Brad Paisley song released in 2007, a Tampa Tribune article back in 2000, and has been shared numerous other times on the Internet throughout the years. https://t.co/9ptq6G8tXXpic.twitter.com/QIRjT3Kvn1
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) July 25, 2026