Late night host Samantha Bee will host an event parallel to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which is sure to be an uncomfortable event given President Trump’s relationship with the press, aptly titled “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.”
As Washington’s journalists sit down for their annual gala on April 29, Bee and colleagues will be on hand at the Willard Hotel in downtown D.C. to roast the commander-in-chief. Bee hosts the TBS series Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.
In an interview with the New York Times, Bee said she does not hope to overshadow the White House Correspondents’ Association gala, which is held to raise scholarship funds for journalism students and honor professionals on the beat, but just wanted to make sure fiery jokes would be aimed at the president that evening.
“We’re not trying to supersede it,” Bee told the Times. “We just want to be there in case something happens — or doesn’t happen — and ensure that we get to properly roast the president.”
Bee said she and her producers floated the idea in the wake of Trump’s election during a conversation about whether the event would change as a result of his presidency. Trump attended the event as a guest in 2011 and was subjected to scathing jokes from both President Barack Obama and host Seth Meyers given the now president’s involvement in promoting birtherism, which is based off the false idea that Obama was not born in the United States.
“We were talking out loud about whether we thought the White House Correspondents’ dinner would change during a Trump presidency, or if it would even exist,” said Bee, who told the Times that proceeds would go to the Committee to Protect Journalists. “And then we thought, Why don’t we just do one, just to do it in the way that we would want it done if we were hosting it?”
In a statement WHCA president Jeff Mason told the Times the organization looks forward to the annual event “this year as we do every year to celebrate the First Amendment, reward some of the finest reporting of the past year and recognize promising young student journalists.”
