Biden roasts Trump at Correspondents’ Dinner, toasts free press
President Joe Biden roasted Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner while also highlighting the “seriousness” of the 2024 election.
Amber Ruffin wasn’t planning to hold back at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
The comedian, 46, sat down with Seth Meyers on “Late Night” Monday to address the White House Correspondents’ Association scrapping plans for her to perform at the event. The news came after Ruffin, who was tapped for the gig in February, faced criticism over a viral clip where she described Trump administration officials as “murderers.”
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where members of the White House and the press gather for an evening of jokes, is traditionally headlined by a comedian. Colin Jost performed at the event last year, and previous comic headliners have included Conan O’Brien, Stephen Colbert and Meyers. The president usually attends and performs jokes of his own, although President Donald Trump has regularly skipped the dinner since his first term.
In a “Late Night” bit with Meyers, Ruffin sarcastically acted like she has learned a lesson about the need to equally skewer both sides of the political aisle.
After Meyers set up an unrelated joke about a man who robbed a bodega, Ruffin sarcastically scolded him and said that making a joke about the burglar would be divisive. “Take it from me,” Ruffin said. “If there’s one thing I learned from this weekend, it’s you have to be fair to both sides.”
As part of the bit, Meyers pushed back by telling Ruffin that “when people are objectively terrible, we should be able to point it out on television,” to which she shot back, “I thought that, too — on Friday. But today is Monday, and Monday’s Amber Ruffin knows that when bad people do bad things, you have to treat them fairly and respectfully.”
Ruffin also joked that “we have a free press so that we can be nice to Republicans at fancy dinners,” adding, “I thought when people take away your rights, erase your history and deport your friends, you’re supposed to call it out, but I was wrong. Glad to find that out now because if they had let me give that speech, oh baby, I would have been so terrifically mean!”
White House Correspondents’ Association president Eugene Daniels confirmed Saturday that Ruffin will no longer speak at the event, and no comedian will be featured at all.
“At this consequential moment for journalism, I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work and providing scholarship and mentorship to the next generation of journalists,” Daniels said.
White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich previously condemned Ruffin’s planned appearance and posted a clip on X of the comedian discussing the event on a podcast. In the video, Ruffin said she was told to be “equal” and make jokes about both sides but that there was “no way” she would do so.
Ruffin also said that Trump administration officials are “kind of a bunch of murderers,” continuing, “They want that false equivalency that the media does. They want that. It feels great. It makes them feel like human beings. But they shouldn’t get to feel that way because they’re not.”
“What kind of responsible, sensible journalist would attend something like this?” Budowich asked. “More importantly, what kind of company would sponsor such as hate-filled and violence-inspiring event?
The White House Correspondents’ Association previously opted to feature a historian, Ron Chernow, at the dinner in 2019 rather than a comedian. A year earlier, comedian Michelle Wolf sparked criticism with her remarks that took particularly brutal aim at members of the Trump administration. The White House Correspondents’ Association’s president at the time, Margaret Talev, said the event is not meant “to divide people” and that Wolf’s monologue “was not in the spirit of the mission.”
Contributing: Jay Stahl
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