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Griffin said she expected Trump might use the nationally televised event to make news by outlining a policy agenda or making the case for his latest push on voter ID laws. Instead, she said, he simply recycled familiar grievances.
"He didn't really seem to have any goal ... I'm not sure why he was there to be honest."
Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi of New York was just as blunt. "I thought it was just mean. It was mean-spirited; it wasn't funny. It's supposed to be an entertaining, fun night, and it was just, I thought, mean-spirited."
Even Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, who tried to defend the president, ultimately couldn't offer much praise. "I've seen him be very funny. I think he could have been funnier," Lawler said before arguing that politicians and journalists traditionally exchange barbs at the annual dinner.
But even he acknowledged Trump missed the mark. "At the end of the day it's an event that is supposed to unify the politicians and the press, but I definitely think the president could have brought a little more levity to it than he did."
Civil rights advocate Maya Wiley summed up the discussion in three words.
"Unfunny, mean, all of the above."
Wiley argued the evening should have celebrated the importance of a free press. Instead, she said, Americans watched "a president attacking journalists."
That criticism echoed one of the most talked-about moments of the night, when Trump singled out CNN's Kaitlan Collins after she accepted an award for her coverage of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's contentious Oval Office meeting with Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
CNN anchor Dana Bash closed the discussion by defending her colleague, saying Collins' award reflected "who she is as a journalist, not what we heard from the president."
For a White House Correspondents' Dinner built around jokes, the sharpest punchlines on Sunday came from people reacting to Trump's performance.
The panel's rare bipartisan agreement is that Trump the comedian bombed in historic fashion.
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