Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Allie Bice. Send tips | Subscribe here| Email Eli | Email Lauren Sometimes landing a gig is a matter of being in the right place at the right time. That was the case for comedian ROY WOOD JR. Wood was at the White House earlier this year shooting a segment for “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” when he bumped into White House Correspondents’ Association president TAMARA KEITH on the West Wing driveway. Keith struck up a conversation and mentioned she was looking for a comedian to host this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner and asked if he would be interested. “It was one of those things that was meant to be, or like a cosmic sign,” Keith said. West Wing Playbook caught up with Wood ahead of Saturday’s gala to talk about dinners past and present. Below is an edited version of our conversation. How does the comedy world view getting asked to speak at the Correspondents' Dinner? I don’t know if comedians really view the White House Correspondents’ Dinner as an honor as much as a necessary deployment. You’re being asked to put together a set to entertain the most powerful people in the country. Half the room hates the other half of the room. And then there’s a third of the room who’s just there to report on the two halves that hate each other. And there’s also people watching at home with totally different comedic barometers. You don’t make it sound fun. Uh huh. But if you can survive that, it’s a hell of a medal to have on your shoulder. Which comedians do you think have done an especially good job at the dinner? They all came at different times and different political climates in our country. So I think it’s very difficult to say. Cedric the Entertainer probably had one of the funniest ones. But it was the Bush administration. You have to remember that these comedians at these dinners — it's one thing on the day, and then weeks and years later people love you or hate you more. I’m sure Seth Meyers thought he did just fine until Trump got elected. Do you feel like there’s too much pearl clutching, especially if you look back at Michelle Wolf’s speech? People clutch pearls because outrage is a marketable commodity. The degree to which you all — and I say you all as the offended parties — ran around and talked about that speech forever was — I'm not gonna say a nothing burger, somebody was offended — but let's not make a whole meal out of this for weeks and weeks. Same thing with Larry Wilmore and the “N word” thing. People were talking for way longer than they should about a man saying that word. The person he said the word to was not offended — so what are we accomplishing in the bigger scheme of things? You don’t think Washington is good at laughing at itself. I don’t think Washington has a sense of humor. I think the press has a sense of humor, so long as it's not about their network. Washington has less of a sense of humor because I’m asking them to laugh at people that tomorrow they have to try and pass a law with. If you have a case going before the Supreme Court, when I crack that Clarence Thomas joke — and there will be Clarence Thomas jokes — god forbid the camera cuts to you laughing. What’s your writing process for this speech? There’s certain people I know that we will probably hit and certain people that we will probably leave alone. And then there’s other people that we will monitor to decide how much we really want to get into what’s going on. I do feel like there’s a degree of tranquility around just knowing that this gig is difficult because you cannot plan every single joke weeks in advance. It’s even harder to run the material anywhere because everybody has a phone and they’re recording. Where are the safe places for me to even put these jokes on stage? How do you get your news? I’m more of a local news person because local news truncates national stories down to the bare bones, so I feel like I get just the essentials. Two or three times a week I read a newspaper from another city. I’ll also do TMZ, The Shade Room or Baller Alert, just for celebrity gossip. I try to stay up on that because sometimes it ties into the national conversation on bigger things. Do you have a go-to reporter on the White House beat? When Yamiche Alcindor was there for PBS. I also enjoy April Ryan and her perspective on things a lot. There’s also this kid, Gabe Fleisher, who does this newsletter called “Wake Up To Politics,” and I’ve been reading that kid since he was like 14. His ability to break stuff down and just go, ‘here's what’s happening’ and remain as agnostic as possible — it’s just amazing. MESSAGE US — Are you CLARENCE THOMAS? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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