Hasan Minhaj at the 2017 White House Correspondents’ Dinner (Getty Images)

Daily Show correspondent Hasan Minhaj acknowledged that he had a rough job in hosting Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “I would say it is an honor to be here, but that would be an alternative fact. It is not. Uh, no one wanted to do this. So, of course, it lands in the hand of an immigrant,” he told the audience at the Washington Hilton. “That’s how it always goes down. No one wanted this gig. No one.”

He continued, “Don Rickles died just so you wouldn’t ask him to do this gig, all right? RIP to Don Rickles, the only Donald with skin thick enough to take a joke like that. RIP to the legend.”

At last year’s WHCD, President Obama joked about the 2016 presidential election, like how then-Republican contender Donald Trump “could be invaluable” in “closing Guantanamo. Because Trump knows a thing or two about running waterfront properties into the ground.” This year, Trump is now the president, and he skipped the event to hold a 100 days-in-office rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

In addition to calling CNN and MSNBC “fake news” and referring to the “failing NY Times,” Trump told his supporters, “I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away from Washington’s swamp, spending my evening with all of you, and with a much, much larger crowd and much better people, right?”

In D.C., Minhaj also tweaked the media: “We’re living in this strange time where trust is more important than truth. And supporters of President Trump trust him. And I know journalists, you guys are definitely trying to do good work. I just think that a lot of people don’t trust you right now. And can you blame them? I mean, unlike Anderson Cooper’s bone structure, you guys have been far from perfect.”

I know I’m busting balls. I don’t have a solution on how to win back trust. I don’t. But in the age of Trump, I know that you guys have to be more perfect now more than ever. Because you are how the president gets his news. Not from advisers, not from experts, not from intelligence agencies, you guys. So that’s why you gotta be on your A-game. You gotta be twice as good. You can’t make any mistakes. Because when one of you messes up, he blames your entire group. And now you know what it feels like to be a minority.

Minhaj ended the evening by bringing it back to the First Amendment, “Free speech is the foundation of an open and liberal democracy, from college campuses to the White House. Only in America can a first-generation, Indian American Muslim kid get on the stage and make fun of the president.”

The orange man behind the Muslim ban. And it’s a sign to the rest of the world. It’s this amazing tradition that shows the entire world that even the president is not beyond the reach of the First Amendment.

But the president didn’t show up. Because Donald Trump doesn’t care about free speech. The man who tweets that everything that enters his head refuses to acknowledge the amendment that allows him to do it. Think about it. It’s almost — what is it? It’s 11? It’s 11 p.m. right now. In four hours, Donald Trump will be tweeting about how bad Nicki Minaj bombed at this dinner.

Here’s a transcript of Minhaj’s remarks—and here are some notable ones:

– “Who would have thought that, with everything going on in the country now, that a Muslim would be standing on this stage for the 9th year in a row.”

– “Tonight is about defending the First Amendment and the free press, and I am truly honored to be here, even though all of Hollywood pulled out now that King Joffrey is president and it feels like the Red Wedding in here.”

– “We have to address the elephant that’s not in the room. The leader of our country is not here. And that’s because he lives in Moscow, it’s a very long flight. It would be very hard for Vlad to make it. Vlad cant just make it on a Saturday, it’s a Saturday! As for the other guy I think he’s in Pennsylvania because he can’t take a joke.”

– “CNN Tonight should just be called, ‘Wait A Second, Now Hold On, Stop Yelling At Each Other! With Don Lemon.'”

– “Now, a lot of people in the media say that Donald Trump goes golfing too much. ‘He goes golfing too much.’ Which raises a very important question: Why do you care? Do you want to know what he is doing when he’s golfing? Being president. Let the man putt-putt…The longer he is distracted, the longer we are not at war with North Korea.”

– “Even if you guys groan, I already have hired Kellyanne Conway. She’s going to go on TV Monday and tell everybody that I killed, so it really doesn’t matter.”

– “Anything. The news coming out of the White House is so stressful, I’ve been watching “House of Cards” just to relax. Just like, ‘Oh, man. A congressman pushed a journalist in front of a moving train? That’s quaint.'”

– “[Fox News] gave [Bill O’Reilly] a $25 million severance package, making it the only package that he won’t force a woman to touch.”

– “MSNBC is here tonight. And I’m glad you guys are here. That way if I’m bombing, Brian Williams will describe it as stunning.”

– “I would like to thank the White House Correspondents’ Association for having me here. I want to thank all of you. I want to thank Woodward and Bernstein for inspiring a generation of journalists. And I would like to thank Donald Trump for inspiring the next.”

The evening raises funds for the White House Corespondents’ Association’s scholarships, but a 2015 Washingtonian investigation found that the WHCA spends more money on itself.