Colin Jost White House Correspondents' Dinner Speech Celebrates 'Decency'

By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | April 28, 2024 |

It’s a weird thing listening to the comedian at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner every year because we can hear some laughter on our television sets, but the laughs and applause are muted in the room. It’s a tough crowd for the comic, and during last night’s set, Colin Jost repeatedly reacted as though he had bombed after delivering a joke.

The speech is not as memorable as that of classics like Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Michelle Wolf, or even Conan O’Brien, but it was funny. He made a few age jokes at Biden’s expense, appropriately took aim at Trump (“Welcome to the last White House Correspondent’s Dinner”), and made several jokes about Matt Gaetz (“We’re here at nerd prom tonight. Matt Gaetz is at a real prom.”)

But the best part of the speech was not the jokes, but the final few minutes, where Jost compared Joe Biden to his grandfather, and said that the last president he voted for before dying was Biden. “He voted for you, and the reason he voted for you is because you are a decent man. My grandpa voted for decency, and decency is why we are all here tonight.”

I’ve cued up that section of the speech, but you can also watch the whole thing here.