Since recent events revealed a comprehension gap on two significant fronts, Amber Ruffin and Seth Meyers took it upon themselves on Monday’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers” to explain a few things about false equivalency and journalism’s purpose.
The first lesson was explicit, with Meyers pretending to close his March 31 monologue by briefly mentioning that Ruffin, a writer and featured performer on his show, had been fired over the previous weekend from her hosting gig for White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner. As a big fan of Ruffin’s, Meyers says, “I would have loved to hear what she had to say.”
Then, he pretends to plow past that to the next headline. “And finally tonight, a bodega was robbed in Brooklyn this week. The burglars shattered the store’s front door, emptied the cash register and set fire to the ATM. When asked why –”
Before Meyers can make a joke at the perpetrator’s expense, Ruffin enters and cuts him short. “Seth, Seth, I’m gonna stop you right there . . .The problem is, that’s divisive. Take it from me – if there’s one thing I learned from this weekend, it’s you have to be fair to both sides.”
What does that mean here? Meyers cites this story as a plain example of one party being in the wrong. An innocent bodega owner was minding his business when a criminal caused massive damage to his property, stole his money and topped it off with arson.
Or . . . did the burglar “provide an innovative ventilation system” while “[receiving] a microloan” and “bravely [fighting] inflation”?
Comedy loves a callback, but the “both sides” rimshot reaches back to the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Donald Trump’s refusal to condemn the mob that stoked violence in that city. One anti-racist demonstrator, Heather Heyer, died after one such extremist drove his car into a crowd.
As the WHCA’s excuse for dismissing Ruffin reminds us, there’s simply no beating a classic. “When you watch ‘The Sound of Music,’” she tells Meyers later in the bit, “you have to root for the singing children and the other people.”
Yes. What should have been a moment for the media to learn from is now the industry’s equivalent of that old Henny Youngman wisecrack: Take my democracy! Please!
Ruffin, who also co-stars on CNN’s “Have I Got News For You,” had been set to host the dinner since Feb. 4, when WHCA president Eugene Daniels called her talents “the ideal fit for this current political and cultural climate.”
“Her perspective will fit right in with the dinner’s tradition of honoring the freedom of the press while roasting the most powerful people on all sides of the aisle and the journalists who cover them,” he added.
The problem with the head of a journalists’ association making such declarations under a Trump administration is that you’d better have the stones to stick by it, regardless of what happens. And I’m not just talking about the presumed reason for Ruffin’s firing, which stems from her recent appearance on a podcast by The Daily Beast.
You’re obligated to stand by that principle of honoring the First Amendment above all else after your colleagues at the Associated Press have had their access limited for refusing to call the Gulf of Mexico by Trump’s new name for that body of water, the Gulf of America.
You stand by it when an antagonistic White House wrests control of the press pool from your grip. And you fight hard for it when that same White House starts rearranging its briefing room’s seating charts to curtail policy-challenging coverage by major media outlets, as it did on Monday.
What did Amber do that so offended the Washington press corps? She announced her intent to call out this administration’s egregious abuses of power and lawlessness. You know, the job we expect journalists to do.
That’s the same day Meyers and Ruffin called out the WHCA and mainstream media at large for its failure to stand up for free speech, whether in their day jobs or at night. That brings us to that second lesson about journalism’s purported function versus how the WHCA believes that it should operate.
“When people are objectively terrible, we should be able to point it out on television!” Meyers says to his colleague.
“I thought that too — on Friday,” Ruffin replies. “But today is Monday. And Monday’s Amber knows that when bad people do bad things, you have to treat them fairly and respectfully.”
Ruffin is referring to Daniels’ widely circulated Saturday memo to WHCA members.
“At this consequential moment for journalism, I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division,” his statement reads, “but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work and providing scholarship and mentorship to the next generation of journalists.”
Nominally, that is the function of the Correspondents’ dinner – to honor the most accomplished Beltway coverage. Politicians, lobbyists, billionaires and movie stars also treat it as a PR opportunity; if they get razzed, they can show us what good sports they are.
The annual gala dates to 1921, although the first president to attend the dinner was Calvin Coolidge in 1924. Since then, nearly every American president has attended at least one of the organization’s dinners. Trump is the exception. He never showed up to a single WHCA dinner during his first administration and isn’t bothering with this year’s, scheduled to take place on April 26.
Celebrities began headlining the event in 1944, when Bob Hope, Gracie Fields and Ed Gardner became the first comedians to step into the hosting gig – or, rather, co-hosting. Bandleader Spike Jones became the first solo WHCA dinner host, although Hope headlined twice after that. Since then, many comedians have headlined the dinner, ranging from middle-of-the-road talents like Jay Leno to outspoken icons like Richard Pryor and George Carlin.
“This is why America is amazing, right?” Andrew Schulz effuses on a recent “Club Shay Shay” episode. “The leader of the free world, the leader of our country . . . submits themselves for public humiliation once a year.”(Again: except for Trump.)
Schulz continued, “This is how you know that we don’t want tyranny, right? The king would never step down to be made fun of in front of the whole world or in front of the whole country . . . Oh, it’s beautiful, it’s like why comedy is so important to me . . . it’s so important to the American identity. It’s this great tool to let you know, hey, you’re regular.”
Note to the WHCA: Schulz, another white guy in a long line of white comics who have hosted, wants the gig. Trump might even show up for that plate of rubber chicken since Schulz happily hosted him on his podcast.
Only six women have ever solo-hosted the event, starting with Paula Poundstone in 1992. Elayne Boosler, Wanda Sykes, Cecily Strong and Michelle Wolf round out the comedians in that group. The late Aretha Franklin headlined in 1999 when the dinner landed shortly after Bill Clinton was acquitted in the Senate of impeachment charges against him.
The prevailing views of the institution changed after 9/11 and the Iraq War. Critics like New York Times columnist Frank Rich accused the WHCA of looking like stooges, “just sitting there and clapping and lending what credibility they have to a completely disingenuous appearance by the president of the United States,” he told NPR at the time, referring to George W. Bush.
“These dinners have become propaganda events for a White House that has really staked almost its entire politics on creating propaganda events, whether it be uranium from Africa or ‘Mission Accomplished,'” Rich added.
What did Friday’s Amber do that so offended the Washington press corps? She announced her intent to call out this administration’s egregious abuses of power and lawlessness. You know, the job we expect journalists to do.
“I’m not 100% interested, in like, ‘Ha, you’re here, look at your stupid head, you’re burned!’” she says on the Daily Beast podcast. “I care that, like, you’re kind of a bunch of murderers.”
Beltway journalists are supposed to appear impartial and polite. The comedians they tap to host are chosen for their skill at stating uncomfortable truths that need to be said to people in power.
Ruffin further explained that the WHCA urged her to be an equal opportunity roast master, hitting the press and Trump’s administration with equal force.
“I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m going to be freaking doing that, dude. Under no circumstance,’” she recalled. “And they want that false equivalency that the media does . . . It feels great. It makes them feel like human beings. But they shouldn’t get to feel that way, because they’re not.”
In a Monday discussion about this hot topic on “The View” co-host Sara Haines expressed surprise that the WHCA invited a comedian this time. “I just don’t think this is an administration with a lot of sense of humor, so I think in hearing kind of the direction she was going, this wasn’t going to be a fun like, ‘throwing it out at everyone in the room,'” Haines says. “That’s why a lot of comedians work as hosts when it comes to Oscars, and they go after everyone. I would prefer it to be funny.”
Haines doesn’t seem to be familiar with the host’s role at these dinners. Beltway journalists are supposed to appear impartial and polite. The comedians they tap to host are chosen for their skill at stating uncomfortable truths that need to be said to people in power, whether in newsrooms or the White House.
Take Wolf’s supposedly controversial set in 2018, when she said she could call Trump “a racist, a misogynist or xenophobic or unstable or incompetent or impotent. But he’s heard all of those, and he doesn’t care.”
The part that got her in trouble was when she called out the silken dishonesty of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s press secretary at the time. “I actually really like Sarah. I think she’s very resourceful. Like, she burns facts, and then she uses the ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Like, maybe she’s born with it; maybe it’s lies. It’s probably lies.”
Later, she added, “Like, what’s Uncle Tom but for white women who disappoint other white women? Oh, I know: Aunt Coulter.”
Wolf’s came after the WHCA called another “Daily Show” alumnus into service, Hasan Minhaj. He served volleys such as, “We are here to talk about the truth. It is 2017, and we are living in the golden age of lying. Now is the time to be a liar, and Donald Trump is the liar-in-chief. And remember, you guys are public enemy No 1. You are his biggest enemy. Journalists, ISIS, normal-length ties.”
With no acknowledgment of that history, Haines expressed concern about Ruffin rhetorically “blowing the place up” with her set – which, to be fair, the comic didn’t disavow on “Late Night.” (“Ooh baby — I would have been so terrifically mean. I would have been on one!” she confesses with a devilish giggle.)
That is part the host’s job, as Daily Beast podcast co-host Samantha Bee (who counterprogrammed the “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner” in 2017) explains on that same episode. The WHCA dinner headliners are obligated to entertain. But the organization chooses its emcees with intent. “Some people are more culpable than others. They get more jokes made about them, and the jokes are meaner because they’re doing things that are worse,” Bee says.
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In case you haven’t been paying attention, Trump and his cronies threaten or have already gutted organizations devoted to caring for veterans, the elderly, the medically vulnerable and other marginalized populations. He’s targeted immigrants for deportation, including those who are here legally.
In eliminating the U.S. Agency for International Development, Trump’s administration is denying financial support for life-saving medical interventions and access to clean water, food and shelter in countries ravaged by war, famine and natural disasters. One global health organization, Gavi, warned the BBC that one million children may die from preventable diseases as a result of this decision.
Trump’s GOP allies know this will happen. They’re celebrating it. Over the weekend, the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s official account on X shared a repurposed meme showing Ghana’s dancing pallbearers, only with JD Vance’s, Trump’s and Elon Musk’s heads pasted on them, shouldering a casket marked with the agency’s seal.
By any conscionable person’s moral definition, that is inhuman. And yet having a Black queer woman speak about this and other horrific developments to a roomful of journalists is simply too divisive. So Ruffin and Meyers had to settle for the “Late Night” audience.
“I thought when people take away your rights, erase your history and deport your friends, you’re supposed to call it out,” Ruffin concludes. “But I was wrong.”
As the kicker, she told Meyers she intended to return the dress she was going to wear for the event. “I already took the tags off, but I’m gonna just say they blew off in the wind,” Ruffin casually shares.
“That’s – that’s lying, Amber!” Meyers protests. “That’s wrong!”
“Ah-ah-ah, you can’t say that!” Ruffin counters before delivering the death blow with a wink and faintly disdainful sneer: “That’s journalism.”
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