Roy Wooden Jr.’s closing monologue on the 2023 White Home Correspondents’ Dinner is a wonderful sight to behold. The comic roasted everybody from President Joe Biden to former Fox Information host Tucker Carlson, eliciting a mixture of laughter and groans from the group of attending journalists.
“Give it up for Darkish Brandon,” Wooden opened, a reference to President Biden’s heavily-memed, laser-eyed alter ego(opens in a brand new tab). He then joked about Biden leaving some labeled paperwork on the rostrum: “Do not give them to him, I am going to put them in a secure place. He do not know the place to maintain them.”
SEE ALSO:
Republicans launch AI-generated assault advert on President Biden
Wooden additionally turned his consideration to the media, and to the firing of Carlson from Fox Information and Don Lemon from CNN. “Tucker bought caught up!” he stated. “Received caught up like that dude from Vanderpump Guidelines” — a reference to the notorious Scandoval.
Later remarks on Lemon included: “Sure, Don Lemon was a diva, and he stated a few ladies are raggedy within the face, however that is a promotion at Fox Information!”
Whereas the night was stuffed with riotous jokes on the expense of high-profile politicians and journalists, Wooden additionally took the time to deal with present newsworthy subjects, akin to anti-drag laws and faculty shootings. “Drag queens should not at a faculty to groom your youngsters. Cease it,” he stated. “And even when they have been, most of them youngsters are gonna get shot in school.”
In response to the viewers’s audible discomfort, he retorted: “Do not groan, go laws!”
Wooden additionally spoke to the significance of journalism, drawing on his father Roy Wooden Sr.’s expertise as a reporter masking Black platoons in Vietnam and the Soweto riots in South Africa. Wooden Sr. went on to discovered the Nationwide Black Community, now the American City Radio Community.
“The work you do as journalists is necessary. It is important. It is harmful,” Wooden stated, occurring to champion native reporters and spotlight the terrifying actuality of newsroom layoffs. Your entire speech is price a watch: Come for the Darkish Brandon jokes, keep for the impassioned breakdown of the present state of journalism.