OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Popular Fox News personality and nighttime host Greg Gutfeld mocked the ‘mainstream’ media for the way in which several outlets reported that former President Donald Trump said “some people” at the network wrote jokes for him ahead of the Al Smith charity dinner last week.
Trump attended the dinner on Thursday, an event where the two major party candidates roast each other and other guests every four years. Vice President Kamala Harris chose not to attend, becoming the first presidential candidate to snub the event since Walter Mondale — another Democrat — in 1984.
During the dinner, the former president poked fun at White Dudes for Harris, Sen. Chuck Schumer, former President Barack Obama, and New York Mayor Eric Adams, among others.
During an in-person appearance on “Fox & Friends” morning show on Friday, Trump was asked by co-host Steve Doocy about the jokes.
“Your material was real funny, who wrote it?” he inquired.
“Well, I’ve had a lot of people helping, a lot of people,” Trump responded. “A couple of people from Fox, actually. I shouldn’t say that, but they wrote some jokes, and for the most part, I didn’t like any of them, right?”
A number of media outlets reported Trump’s remarks, but not long afterward, Fox issued a statement of denial: “FOX News confirmed that no employee or freelancer wrote the jokes.”
Gutfeld took verbal shots at the media during Friday’s “The Five” program for reporting what Trump said without bothering to fact-check with the network first.
“The best part was the meltdown over the speech,” he said. “Trump said somebody at Fox helped him write the jokes. Wasn’t true. It was a comedian who sends me riffs on my monologue. And these left-wing housebound auditors on social media put on their reporter caps, thought they had a Watergate scandal they were breaking.”
Gutfeld added: “Their whole career is based on moments of another person’s actual career. While we have fun, they wet their couches. At some point, you should revisit the trajectory of your life if your dopamine is dependent on what you think other people have done.”
WATCH:
At the dinner, Trump reserved some of his most acerbic comments for former New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio.
“We have another former New York City mayor with us,” he said after roasting Mayor Eric Adams. “Frankly, easily the worst in our history. And it’s not Michael (Bloomberg), that I can tell you. I’m surprised that Bill de Blasio was actually able to make it tonight, to be honest. He was a terrible mayor. I don’t give a s**t if this is comedy or not. He was a terrible mayor. He did a horrible job. That’s not comedy, by the way. That’s fact,” he said.
“But unlike the rest of New York, at least Bill doesn’t have to worry about the criminals. They owe him big. He let them get away with a lot of stuff,” he said.
He then turned his attention to other Democrats.
“It’s a true pleasure to be with you this evening. Amazing pleasure. And these days, it’s really a pleasure anywhere in New York without a subpoena for my appearance,” he said at the start of his remarks, poking fun at himself and his court cases brought by state Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
He went on to say that the vice president sending a video message rather than attending in person was “very disrespectful” to the Catholic community before warning her about history.
“The last Democrat not to attend this important event was Walter Mondale, and it did not go very well for him. He lost 49 states and he won one, Minnesota,” he cautioned before roasting her again.
“But if you really wanted Vice President Harris to accept your invitation, I guess you should have told her the funds were going to bail out the looters and rioters in Minneapolis, and she would have been here. Guaranteed, she would have been here. Guaranteed. She would have been okay,” the former president said.
“Right now we have someone in the White House who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have mental faculties of a child. It’s sad. There’s a person that has nothing going, no intelligence whatsoever, but enough about Kamala Harris,” he said.
