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WHCH board cancels Trump-hating comic at annual media self-love fest

March 31, 2025 | | Print Article

The annual White House Correspondents’ dinner will go without a featured comedian this year after Amber Ruffin’s scheduled appearance was canceled.

Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, made the announcement in a statement to members on Saturday, explaining that the decision was a unanimous one by the board and came after “planning a re-envisioning of our dinner tradition.”

“As a first step, I wanted to share that the WHCA board has unanimously decided we are no longer featuring a comedic performance this year,” Daniels wrote.

“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 added.

The announced about-face came soon after criticism by White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and Personnel Taylor Budowich. But CNN’s Brian Stelter noted that the decision about the comedian was “already in the works” before the comments.

“This year’s @whca dinner will be hosted by a 2nd rate comedian who is previewing the event by calling this administration ‘murderers’ who want to ‘feel like human beings, but they shouldn’t get to feel that way, because you’re not.’ What kind of responsible, sensible journalist would attend something like this? More importantly, what kind of company would sponsor such as hate-filled and violence-inspiring event?” Budowich wrote on X.

On The Daily Beast podcast last week, Ruffin said the Trump White House is staffed with “murderers” and they are not “human beings.” In announcing Ruffin’s appearance nearly two months ago, Daniels said she was “the ideal fit for this current political and cultural climate.”

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley blasted the choice of the comedian and the “welcomed, though belated” decision to cancel her appearance.

“The WHCA has long shown a political bias in such comedians, but nothing quite as brazen as Ruffin. Even for the WHCA, it was beyond the pale and many of us had resolved not to attend this year,” the professor at George Washington University Law School wrote in a blog post.

While the WHCA and Daniels sparked the left’s ire with the “cowardly” decision to pull Ruffin, many others on X had a decidedly different view.

Frieda Powers
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