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

Amber Ruffin "Would Have Been So Terrifically Mean" During WHCD

Checking in with Late Night with Seth Meyers, Amber Ruffin addressed being dropped from the upcoming White House Correspondents' Dinner.

One of the things we love about writer, comedian, actress, and host Amber Ruffin (Peacock's The Amber Ruffin Show, CNN's Have I Got News For You) is her willingness to speak truth to power in a way that makes us laugh, think, take ownership of how we're most likely contributing to the shitstorm we're currently suffering through, and remember those who have suffered and continue to suffer during the far-right's move to make "Murica" great again (for rich, straight white dudes). So when we heard that Ruffin was set to host April 26th's White House Correspondents' Dinner (WHCD), sponsored by the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA), we were psyched. If there was anyone who could make a room full of media talking heads laugh and feel empowered in the face of Trump's efforts to suffocate the press and stifle free speech, it was Ruffin. And then the WHCA pulled the invitation to host – a topic that Ruffin addressed when she visited her late-night stomping ground, NBC's Late Night with Seth Meyers, where she made it clear to host Seth Meyers that she planned to be "so terrifically mean."

Apparently, we started traveling down the road to this year's WHCD getting attention for all of the wrong reasons last week when Ruffin discussed the upcoming 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 brings us to tonight when Meyers gave Ruffin a chance to share her thoughts on what went down and what it says 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."

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