History is repeating itself.
As you probably know, the White House Correspondents Association holds its "Nerd Prom" annually, during which reporters celebrate themselves. It's a red carpet affair, with celebrity guests and a runway photo shoot of each correspondent as they arrive. (The biggest celebrity guest in recent memory was Carrie Fisher's dog.)
The president is invited, and is usually roasted by a featured comedian. This put the WHCA in a cold sweat after President Donald Trump was elected. He was hostile to the free press, whom he called fake news. Should they invite him? Cancel the dinner altogether? In 2018, the WHCA announced that instead of a comedian, they'd invite author Ron Chernow to make the case for the First Amendment.
Trump is now serving a second term, which again puts the WHCA into a bind. They've decided that the event is too important for a comedian to perform this year. "At this consequential moment in journalism, I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work," wrote WHCA President Eugene Daniels.
🚨Anti-Trump comedian will NO LONGER headline the White House Correspondents Dinner! pic.twitter.com/jwHdQoHhfG
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 29, 2025
POLITICO reports:
The White House Correspondents’ Association is canceling comedian Amber Ruffin’s planned headline performance for its annual dinner next month, amid tensions between the association and President Donald Trump’s administration.
…
In his announcement last month that Ruffin was set to headline the event, Daniels wrote that she had been chosen because her “unique talents are the ideal fit for this current political and cultural climate.”
Ruffin, an Emmy- and Tony-nominated comedian, author and writer for NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” has mocked Trump administration policies in recent weeks.
In a segment of “Amber Says What?” on Meyers’ show earlier this month, Ruffin took a jab at the White House’s decision to bar AP reporters from the Oval Office for refusing to follow the president’s order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
“I was like ‘What! Now you care about deadnaming?’” Ruffin said, to laughs from the audience.
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"To laughs from the audience." Hey — the "deadnaming" joke is ours. We got to it first.
What a tragedy.
This organization needs to be disbanded. The allotment of new media seats in the Press Room has reinforced its irrelevancy.
— Commonsense Conservative 🇺🇸🗽🦅🦬🎗️ (@UplandHunterVA) March 29, 2025
Liberal America hating douchebag president decides to cancel American hating liberal douchebag comedian. Got it.
— Michael James (@NJDevilsHockeyy) March 29, 2025
They can take their correspondents dinner and stick up their lying asses.
— TheeGulfCoast (@Smooth1BC) March 29, 2025
No stand-up comic at Nerd Prom? These are dangerous times to be a journalist in America.
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