In our fast changing world,
traditions
like the White House Correspondents
Dinner are important.
I'll mean,
you
just say
that while my requirements
don't count, he's
the one who, you know,
being very diplomatic in the meetings,
you know. Well, that's good.
It's great.
We're all on the same pattern
because at the end of the day,
you know, freedom is what we all want.
The leaders have come out of North
Korea, say what Okay.
All right, all right.
Hold my purse, Mr.
President. At home. At home.
And Fox News
is sort of like a Waffle House.
Yeah, it's
relatively normal
in the afternoon,
but as soon as the sun goes down,
there's a drunk lady
named Jeanine threatening to fight
every Mexican who comes in.
You can throw me out.
I know that Ralph has died.
The White
House Correspondents Dinner,
a uniquely Washington tradition.
The first dinner actually took place back
in 1921.
Only had 50 people this year.
It's going to be star studded.
It's going to have a guest list over
2500 people.
It's a rare chance chance
for the press corps
to let a tear down and socialize
with Washington brokers and celebrities.
Sometimes gets criticized for that.
16 president and vice
president since Calvin
Coolidge have attended the dinner.
One who did not.
Donald Trump
never made an appearance
during his presidency.
Instead, at his press secretary
in recent years,
a speaker, typically a comedian, does
roast the commander in chief.
And this year's roaster
is joining us now.
Standup comedian
correspondent of The Daily
Show, Roy Junior,
who forgets our names by tomorrow night.
You never know why.
Be clean. Good to see
Cooper, it's great to meet you.
This is the weirdest gig, right?
Like the people in the room
aren't your audience.
And how do you practice it?
You have to still be with that.
Regular people also watching this.
That room
represents like the 1% of the power,
how decisions are made in this country.
But the people that are affected by
those decisions
are watching the program, too.
So I think there's a way to honor both
both like both audiences.
But ultimately, at the end of the day,
it's a gig.
And that's what I have to tell myself
while I sit and comb
through these jokes at 1:00
in the morning in New York.
But it's a good time
and I think it's an honor
to be able to do it,
because when you really look at the way
the power dynamics are
set up in this country,
very few citizens
get an opportunity to have a microphone
in front of everybody
everybody who has stuff
that needs to be heard.
Now, the important part
is that you want to make it funny.
I don't think I need to get up there
and be just right.
Like there's a humor
to righteousness balance
that you have to find within
what you're doing.
So that's the part
you can't do in the comedy club
because you cannot go,
Oh, joke, joke, joke.
Oh, Joe Biden and Carmelo
reelection also.
Did you know that
journalists are getting locked up
or brawl, right?
It's like this is just
which is the line
you have to walk, right?
It's half a political event.
I mean, fundamentally,
do you have a sense of like,
how do you even make a joke in the age
when there is no shame?
Well, I think you still make the joke.
There's still a punch line
The shame part is about whether or not
the joke can influence change.
I don't think the correspondents dinner.
I mean, we would have to check
and do the research,
but I don't
I don't know of any politician
that got hit with a joke and was like,
you know what?
Let me go ahead and reconsider
my whole platform.
Donald Trump.
Well, he said, let me start a platform.
I would like to just there's nothing I.
Do you think the Ron DeSantis jokes
I got in the clip tomorrow.
Do you think that Ron DeSantis
tomorrow is about,
you know, what made you write
and put the black history back in
the books?
A glimmer
of where this is going on,
you would hope.
I saw you edited hoping you let you hope
it was read
and then like a flame
went outside to Mickey Mouse. Okay.
You know, this is Mickey Mouse.
You can't change that.
Person's mind with a joke.
It's possible.
I'm raising my voice.
Oh, I love it's morning energy.
I love it.
We love it are all jokes.
But I love your story, too.
I want our viewers to get to know you
a little bit before they see
you up there.
The fact that, you know,
you're born here in New York,
but then you grew up now.
Yeah, I was born in New York.
I grew up in Birmingham.
My father was a radio journalist,
but he deliberately embedded himself in
pretty much any black conflicts
that were going
on, black platoons in Vietnam.
Yeah.
Wait till he was in
Rhodesia with Zimbabwe. Now,
then I got to college.
Stuart Scott was my North Star
for journalism.
I wanted to be funny
and talk about sports.
Got down to college, got got in trouble.
Apparently, you have to pay for clothes.
When you go to the mall,
you do not just get to live with them.
You have to give them money.
But that did not.
But that's what got me into that year.
You had that that film university
let you let you gave
you gave you a year off
to think of sprinting.
Suspension is a word
you started. Yeah.
You did this comedy, right?
But but to the credit of Florida
A&M University,
they allow me to come back
and get their journalism degree
and that
and they
gave me a double
edged sword because now I'm a comic
and I'm a journalist.
I was doing radio.
And the irony of it now
is that as much as I didn't
want to be like my father,
topically speaking,
that's literally what I do
now, is talk about the world issues.
I'm just a little funny. It's poetic.
Who are your targets for tomorrow night?
SEO,
I know what you're trying to ask me,
and I'm like that.
I was really into Alabama, like,
Yes, I would
talk about what happened this week.
I got to talk about everything this week.
Let me just say,
there was a lot of stuff that happened
this week.
There were many things
that happened this week.
And those things
have to be discussed in a fair way.
Very fair.
Kevin McCarthy,
I think, is bracing for that, too.
Don't worry.
You know,
trust me, I'm not going to lose my job.
I'm not trying to get in trouble.
Okay, Roy,
that's the most important
part of the correspondents
dinner is leave employed
that's your goal.
I leave. Important to love that.
Roy Junior, we're all going to be there.
We cannot wait
to see what you have prepared
and even preparing really hard for this.
Thank you all. Can't wait.