White House Correspondents Dinner: Obama Takes On Trump, Birthers, The Media, And More (VIDEO)

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WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama exercised his revenge Saturday after weeks of attacks from his would-be Republican challenger Donald Trump, joking that the billionaire businessman could bring change to the White House, transforming it from a stately mansion into a tacky casino with a whirlpool in the garden.
With Trump in attendance, Obama used the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner to mock the reality TV star's presidential ambitions. The president said Trump has shown the acumen of a future president, from firing Gary Busey on a recent episode of "Celebrity Apprentice" to focusing so much time on conspiracy theories about Obama's birthplace.
After a week when Obama released his long-form Hawaii birth certificate, he said Trump could now focus on the serious issues, from whether the moon landing actually happened to "where are Biggie and Tupac?"
"No one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than 'the Donald,'" Obama said, referring to Trump's claims the same day that he was responsible for solving the issue.
For Trump's decision to fire actor Busey instead of rock singer Meat Loaf from his TV show earlier this month, Obama quipped: "These are the types of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir."
Trump chuckled at some of the earlier jokes, but was clearly less amused as comedian Seth Meyers picked up where Obama left off.
"Donald Trump often talks about running as a Republican, which is surprising," said the Saturday Night Live actor, entrusted with providing some of the comedy for the evening. "I just assumed he was running as a joke."


Trump stared icily at Meyers as he continued to criticize the real estate tycoon.
The two men found themselves in the same room after an intense week of attacks from Trump, who has piggybacked on the birther conspiracies and even Obama's refusal to release his university grades to raise the profile of his possible presidential bid.
And the birth certificate was clearly the key punchline for the evening, which typically offers the president a chance to show off his humorous side and a town consumed by politics and partisanship to enjoy a light-hearted affair.
Obama's presentation started after the wrestler Hulk Hogan's patriotic anthem, "Real American," played. Images of Americana from Mount Rushmore to Uncle Sam were shown on the screen, alongside his birth certificate. And then he offered to show his live birth video, which turned out to be a clip from the Disney film, "The Lion King."
On the serious side, Obama took time to thank the troops for their service overseas and noted that the people of the South, especially Alabama, have suffered heart-wrenching losses.
"The devastation is unimaginable and it is heartbreaking," he said. He encouraged the journalists in the room to help tell the stories of those who have been hurt by the storms and saluted those who lost their lives while covering the news.
Other possible Republican presidential hopefuls in attendance were former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Rep. Michele Bachmann and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. And stars such as Sean Penn and Scarlett Johansson also were among the 3,000 people who attended.
The association was formed in 1914 as a liaison between the press and the president. Every president since Calvin Coolidge has attended the dinner. Some of the proceeds from the dinner pay for journalism scholarships for college students.

In releasing his full birth certificate today, President Obama finally played what my CNBC colleague, former Bush White House spokesman Tony Fratto, called his "Trump card." But was that enough to satisfy the Donald? Not by a long shot.

True to form, Donald Trump couldn't resist the glare of the spotlight this morning in New Hampshire, when he climbed off his helicopter and took credit for the White House decision to release Obama's long form birth certificate. "Today, I'm very proud of myself because I've accomplished something that nobody else has been able to accomplish," Trump told the gaggle of reporters at an airport hangar in Portsmouth. "I am really honored, frankly, to have played such a big role in hopefully getting rid of this issue."

Notice the language. "I'm very proud of myself. I've accomplished something. I am really honored." With Donald Trump, it's always about Donald Trump.

But with Trump's biggest campaign issue now put to rest, he desperately needed something else to get attention. First, he tried to squeeze the last bit of life out of the birther controversy. The president should have released the birth certificate "a long time ago," Trump said. Never mind that no other president in memory has ever been asked to show his birth certificate to prove his American citizenship, The Donald has spoken.

Next, Trump promised to examine the birth certificate personally. "We have to look at it. We have to see is it real? Is it proper? But I hope it checks out," he said.

Then Trump, the lead architect of the biggest campaign distraction so far this year, tried to blame the president for the distraction. Instead of talking about birth certificates, Trump said President Obama should be focused on gas prices, which according to Trump, is really easy to solve if Obama just "gets off his basketball court." That's rich. The guy who won't announce his candidacy for president because he's too busy taping a reality show is criticizing the guy who actually is the president for not taking his job seriously.

But there's a deeper meaning to Trump's basketball dig. Trump was once again reminding Americans that Barack Obama is, dare I say it, black. And not one of "the blacks" with whom Trump apparently gets along so well. Obama, in Trump's eyes, is not one of the exceptional blacks like Kwame Jackson, the Harvard MBA who finished in second place in the first season of Trump's NBC show The Apprentice.

Instead, Trump suggests that Obama is one of those stereotypical basketball-playing black men who are, presumably, too lazy or too dumb to get a real job, or to inherit their father's $40 million business, as Trump did.

Just in case you missed the "race card" there, Trump drove it home with his following point at the press conference -- that Obama did not deserve to go to Columbia or Harvard Law School. Although our last president was, by his own admission, a sub-par student, Trump argues that our current president, a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, has risen through his life solely because he is the beneficiary of that dreaded right-wing conspiracy theory called affirmative action. That's the code language Republicans have been using for years to win votes in the south, and it's the same language my MSNBC colleague, former GOP presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, employed just this week to describe America's first black president.

So here we are in 2011, less than three years after the Wall Street financial collapse nearly brought down our entire economy, and we find ourselves debating what happened in 1961 when Barack Obama was born, and in 1991 when Obama graduated from law school. That's a tragedy for the American voters who deserve a serious election campaign to address the serious issues we face as a nation.

But let's be honest, this distraction is bigger than Donald Trump. Despite his success in the early polls, Trump may not run for or win the GOP presidential nomination next year, but he represents exactly what is wrong with the Republican Party. Trump is a wealthy businessman, flying around in a private helicopter, flirting dangerously with racist fringe elements, and firing workers every week on his TV show to promote his self-interests. That's not the image the Republican Party wants to project in the 2012 campaign. But for a party that wants to eliminate Medicare and affirmative action, deny unemployment benefits to American workers, and give tax breaks to billionaires like Trump, it's an image that hits all too close to home.