Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Brian Richards | News | March 30, 2025
For those of us who were excited by the news earlier this year that Amber Ruffin would be performing at the White House Correspondents Dinner occurring on April 26, yesterday brought some shock and disappointment with the sudden announcement that Amber’s appearance was canceled, and that she would not be appearing at the dinner as initially planned.
From Variety:
“The [White House Correspondents Association] board has unanimously decided we are no longer featuring a comedic performance this year. 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,” WHCA president Eugene Daniels wrote to members in a statement.The journalism group, which has seen its control over interactions with Trump eroded in recent weeks, made the decision after Taylor Budowich, a White House deputy chief of staff, raised comments Ruffin has made in the past that are critical of Trump. Earlier this week, Ruffin told a podcast backed by The Daily Beast that she would not try to make sure her jokes targeted all sides of the political spectrum as the WHCA had requested, and likened the Trump administration to “kind of a bunch of murderers.” Playing to both sides “makes them feel like human beings,” she said, “cause they’re not.”
Once the news broke that Amber’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was canceled, it didn’t take long for people to express their thoughts about the matter on social media. And many of those people were not pleased.
The White House Correspondents’ Association said it fired host Amber Ruffin so it can instead focus the dinner on celebrating the First Amendment.
Which apparently can be done best by preventing a gay black woman from speaking.
— Steve Hofstetter (@stevehofstetter.bsky.social) March 29, 2025 at 5:37 PM
It's messed up that the White House Correspondents Association cancelled Amber Ruffin, but that shouldn't distract us from all the fine work they do in their ongoing crusade against journalism.
— Frank Conniff (@frankconniff.bsky.social) March 29, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Amber Ruffin is more comfortable telling the truth than the White House Correspondents Association is. (If they think it's comedians that are dividing America rather than the folks in the place they cover, they're for sure in the wrong line of work.)
— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf.bsky.social) March 29, 2025 at 3:13 PM
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The rationale is somehow even more pathetic than the cancellation of Amber Ruffin as host.
In a moment of pervasive and cowardly po-faced capitulation from the institutions we naively counted on to save us, "the next generation of journalists" is a rose-colored hypothetical best not counted upon.
— Daniel Fienberg (@thefienprint.bsky.social) March 29, 2025 at 2:53 PM
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Some of them also expressed their hope that Amber would go ahead and perform her material originally intended for the White House Correspondents Dinner, whether live on YouTube, or an episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers, where she has been a longtime writer and performer for the program, particularly in the recurring segments “Amber Says What?” and “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell.”
It remains unknown if Trump will even attend the White House Correspondents Dinner, especially now that no comedian will make jokes at his expense while he sits in his chair, and looks stone-faced as if he’s waiting for his constipation to finally end. But it’s horrible and infuriating enough to see schools like Columbia University and Pomona College, and organizations of all shapes and sizes break the speed limit in their rush to bend the knee and make Trump and his fellow Nazis happy, yet we now have to see journalists try even harder than before to do the very same. And because they can’t or won’t take Trump and his administration to task for all the ways he’s tearing the country apart and destroying its reputation in the process, it makes sense for the White House Correspondents Association to not want any comedians present at their dinner.
We already saw the scathing treatment they received from Michelle Wolf when she performed at the Correspondents Dinner in 2018, and told journalists to their faces how they were obsessed with kissing his ass and making lots of money while doing so. Fast-forward to 2025, when those very same journalists would rather not be called out at Nerd Prom for being quieter than ants pissing on cotton about Trump’s cruelty and incompetence, and about the hundreds of other journalists like Hossam Shabat and Shireen Abu Akleh who have been murdered by the IDF while covering the genocide that is currently happening in Gaza.
Especially when they have more important things to do, such as coddling the feelings of those who voted for Trump and sang his praises, but lost their jobs anyway, and damn near shrugging their shoulders about ICE kidnapping anyone who publicly expresses opinions that are pro-Palestine. It’s this kind of “journalistic excellence” that is meant to be celebrated at the circle jerk that is the White House Correspondents Dinner, and why Amber Ruffin is no longer a part of it.
