Amber Ruffin Reacts to Getting Axed from WHCA Dinner, Would Have Been 'Terrifically Mean'

That tradition was set to continue this year with comedian Amber Ruffin hired to bring the funny to the annual dinner, which began all the way back in 1921. Beginning with Calvin Coolidge in 1924, every sitting president has attended at least one dinner during their tenure -- except for the current one.

And Donald Trump, who has made no secret of his disdain for the press, has already made it clear he has no intention of attending this year's event, either. Nevertheless, in what some see as capitulation to White House hostility to the media, the WHCA cancelled Ruffin at the eleventh hour.

It's certainly not unprecedented for the dinner to not have a comedian speaker. It's happened from time to time over the years, including in 2020 and 2021 -- though COVID-19 might have had something to do with that -- but hiring and then firing one is certainly different.

Nevertheless, Ruffin is taking her dismissal in stride, and in fact, appears to have gained some personal insight from the WHCA decision, and their reasoning behind it.

As the comedian is also a writer on Late Night with Seth Meyers, it was fully expected she'd come out with a blistering response to the WHCA boot, and she did not disappoint. But she didn't come out fired up and firing shots -- well, not exactly.

Instead, the moment was set up by Meyers breaking the news of her firing and saying he'd have loved to hear her response before moving on to a story about a man breaking into a bodega.

Suddenly, Ruffin showed up to express her concerns about how he was planning to end that particular joke, ready to share what she'd learned from getting fired.

"Well, I mean, obviously I’m going to make a punchline making fun of the guy who robbed the bodega," Meyers told her.

"See. Seth, the problem is that’s divisive. Take it from me. If there’s one thing I learned from this weekend, it’s you have to be fair to both sides," Ruffin said with a twinkle in her eye.

Meyers said that couldn't possibly apply here as on one side you have an innocent bodega owner and on the other the man who clearly robbed him.

"Or, hear me out, there are very fine people on both sides," Ruffin countered with a smile.

She had responses to each of his points targeting the robber. Shattering the door, "or did he provide an innovative ventilation system?" Stealing money from the register, or "he received a micro-loan?" Setting fire to an ATM, or "he bravely fought inflation; thank you for your service!"

"When people are objectively terrible, we should be able to point it out on television," Meyers told Ruffin, setting her up to more directly address her dismissal.

"I thought that, too," Ruffin agreed. "On Friday. But today is Monday, and Monday’s Amber Ruffin knows that when bad people do bad things, you have to treat them fairly and respectfully."

She went on to compare the situation to watching The Sound of Music, where "you have to root for the singing children and the other people."

When Meyers asked if she meant the Nazis, Ruffin countered, "Calling them that is so one-sided."

Meyers again tried to emphasize the argument, "The whole reason we have a free press is so we can report stories, you know, as they actually happen."

"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 argued.

She went on to accuse her boss of "sowing the seeds of discord," admitting that she used to think the same way. But getting fired for planning to use her voice has given her a new perspective.

"I thought when people take away your rights, erase your history and deport your friends, you’re supposed to call it out," she said. "But I was wrong."

In the end, she said she's glad she found all this out before the event, "because if they had let me give that speech, baby, I would have been so terrifically mean."

Ruffin then said she would have to return the dress she'd purchased for the dinner, saying she was going to say the tags "blew off in the wind." When Meyers told her that would be lying and "that's wrong," she pushed back, "Ah ah ah, you can’t say that. That's journalism!"

Ruffin's appearance Monday night came two days after WHCA president Eugene Daniels' Saturday email to member saying they were pulling the comedian.

"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," the email read, per The Hollywood Reporter.

It's a stark contrast to what he said in February when Ruffin was first booked, per THR. At that time, he proudly proclaimed, "When I began to think about what entertainer would be a perfect fit for the dinner this year, Amber was immediately at the top of my list."

The decision to reverse course and pull Ruffin came after the comedian appeared on a Daily Beast podcast last week, where she said she'd been told she had to target Republicans and Democrats both in her speech -- and she told them she wouldn't do it.

"There's no way I'm frickin' going to be doing that, dude," Ruffin said on the podcast. "They want that false equivalency that the media does ... It feels great. It makes them feel like human beings. But they shouldn't get to feel that way, because they're not."

As for what she was planning to do with her appearance, Ruffin teased, "I'm not 100% interested in being like, 'Ha, you're here. Look at your stupid head. You're burned,'" she said. "I care, like, 'You're kind of a bunch of murderers.'"

It was this last line that apparently caught the attention of Taylor Budowich, Trump's deputy chief of staff, who took took to X on Friday to call Ruffin "a 2nd rate comedian" while sharing a clip from her podcast appearance.

"What kind of responsible, sensible journalist would attend something like this?" he wrote. "More importantly, what kind of company would sponsor such as [sic] hate-filled and violence-inspiring event?"

This isn't the first time the WHCA has blinked at criticism, either. After comedian Michelle Wolf's blistering appearance in 2018 that saw her target then-press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was blasted by the right and triggered a Trump boycott order, the WHCA countered by inviting historian Ron Chernow to speak in 2019.

Trevor Noah, Roy Wood Jr. and Colin Jost are the last three comedians to speak at the annual dinner, with Biden continuing the tradition of showing up to get roasted.

He followed dozens of presidents before him who took their hits from comics like Bob Hope, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Chevy Chase, Al Franke, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Wanda Sykes, and Conan O'Brien in a tradition dating back centuries -- and seemingly ending in 2025.