More than a decade after being the butt of Barack Obama’s jokes at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Donald Trump is finally responding — and he’s putting a dramatic spin on it.
At the time, the dinner made headlines for Obama’s scathing comedic takedown of Trump, who had been loudly championing the false “birther” conspiracy that questioned Obama’s U.S. citizenship. Just days before the dinner, Obama had released his long-form birth certificate, a move Trump claimed credit for — and one Obama used as comedic ammunition.
In the now-viral footage, Obama mocked Trump’s supposed investigative skills, joking that with the birth certificate mystery solved, Trump could move on to “the moon landing” and the whereabouts of Biggie and Tupac. He also took aim at Trump’s reality TV credentials, mocking his Celebrity Apprentice decisions in front of a room packed with politicians, journalists, and celebrities — with Trump sitting stone-faced in the audience.
Comedian Seth Meyers followed with more brutal jabs, ridiculing Trump’s rumored presidential ambitions and suggesting the idea was little more than a punchline.
The event was widely seen as a turning point — a moment of public humiliation that reportedly fueled Trump’s desire to enter the political arena and prove his critics wrong.
Now, in a new video posted on Truth Social, Trump is reclaiming the narrative. Labeling the 2011 roast “the beginning,” he insists it wasn’t his downfall — it was the spark that ignited his journey to the presidency. “They thought they were laughing at me,” the video implies. “But I was just getting started.”
The post comes amid a fresh wave of attacks on Obama by Trump, including unfounded accusations of treason and the circulation of a deepfake video showing the former president being arrested.