Posted in: Opinion, streaming, TV, TV, YouTube | Tagged: Amber Ruffin, opinion, trump, WHCD

Amber Ruffin Was Going to "Act All the Way Out" During WHCD Gig

During CNN's Have I Got News For You, Amber Ruffin discussed losing the WHCD gig: "I lost the gig because I was out here talkin’ s**t."

Writer, comedian, actress, and host Amber Ruffin found herself a topic on her own show this weekend when CNN's Have I Got News For You addressed the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) canceling her gig as host of April 26th's White House Correspondents' Dinner. During the segment "Offend-O-Meter," host Roy Wood, Jr. introduced Ruffin's issue with the WHCA as the next subject – noting that Ruffin was the "offender" and that the WHCA and Donald Trump's White House were those who felt "offended" – while dropping a great film reference along the way. "Amber, following in the tradition of Craig from 'Friday,' was fired on her day off as she was uninvited from the White House Correspondents dinner when she said that she intended to make fun of the current administration."

"I mean, Oh my God! I could f**king talk for the next three hours!" Ruffin began after being asked by Wood, Jr. if she believes she lost the hosting job by telegraphing too that she was going to go after Trump and the GOP. "I lost the gig because I was out here talkin' shit. And I think it's a good thing that I lost the gig because I was gonna show up there and act all the way out," Ruffin added, with the audience in agreement. "Also, it's not anyone's fault. Because when I was hired, we were like, 'Aww yeah, we'll give it to everybody.' Then, they started fucking disappearing people to a prison in El Salvador. They rolled back fucking civil rights. So I was like, 'If I make this equal, then I'm also a piece of shit.' I can't fucking do that."

Here's a look at the clip from Ruffin's CNN show (with special thanks to Brian Stelter for posting):

Apparently, we started traveling down the road to this year's WHCD getting attention for all of the wrong reasons when Ruffin discussed the gig during a podcast interview with Samantha Bee and Joanna Coles for The Daily Beast (which you can check out above). During the conversation, Ruffin discussed how she was going to approach the event – and how she wasn't going to be pulling punches. "I'm not 100% interested in being like, 'Ha, you're here. Look at your stupid head. You're burned.' I care, like, 'You're kind of a bunch of murderers.'" The WHCA apparently pushed the idea of Ruffin targeting everyone the same way – an idea that Ruffin wasn't on board with. "They were like, 'You need to be equal and make sure that you give it to both sides and blah blah blah.' I was like, 'There's no way I am going to be freaking doing that dude. Under no circumstances,'" Ruffin added.

Reportedly, those comments made their way to Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff, Taylor Budowich, who took issue with the WHCA moving forward with Ruffin. Over the weekend, it appeared that WHCA President Eugene Daniels agreed, announcing that Ruffin had been dropped from the event. "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," Daniels offered in a statement – though some within and outside of the WHCA see the move as another example of the media "taking a knee" for Trump at a time when journalists should be banding together to fight back in the name of the free press.

That brought us to last week when late-night host Seth Meyers gave Ruffin a chance to share her thoughts on what went down and what it said about the current state of media and journalism. "The whole reason we have a free press is so we can report stories as they actually happen," Meyers said at one point, arguing that journalism is meant to call out the reality of what's happening in our society—especially when it isn't pleasant. That's when Ruffin responded with some much-needed knife-twisting on the WHCA.

"No, we have a free press so that we can be nice to Republicans at fancy dinners. That's what it says in the First Amendment," Ruffin shared, going into further detail after Meyers acted surprised that the First Amendment would address that issue specifically. "I think so. I can't read it. They wrote it in that loopy cursive. The point is that you are sowing the seeds of discord. And I used to be the same way. I thought, when people take away your rights, erase your history, and deport your friends, you are supposed to call it out," Ruffin responded. "But I was wrong. Glad to find that out now because if they had let me give that speech…Oh, baby. I would have been so terrifically mean."

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!