Roy Wood Jr. hilariously summed up every major political event of the last few months during his White House Correspondents’ Dinner monologue Saturday night, making sure to torch every politician, news network, news anchor (current and former) and political faction along the way.
Following Joe Biden’s introduction of the “Daily Show” correspondent at the podium, Wood hit the ground running with a jab at the president, who barely had time to sit down before getting roasted.
“Real quick, Mr. President, I think you left some of your classified documents up here. I’ll put them in a safe place,” Wood said, folding a paper and putting it in his breast pocket. “He don’t know where to keep them.”
Of course, Wood had to touch on the recent news network shakeups that ousted two longtime anchors. First up, Fox News’ firing of Tucker Carlson, which he likened to Trevor Noah’s recent and sudden exit from “The Daily Show.”
“To Tucker’s staff, I want you to know that I know what you’re feeling,” Wood said. “I work at ‘The Daily Show,’ so I too have been blindsided by the sudden departure of the host of a fake news program.”
Next up, CNN’s ousting of Don Lemon — a bit more direct:
“Speaking of a—holes, Don Lemon is out of the job,” Wood said bluntly. Wood later admitted, “Yes, Don Lemon was a diva and he said a couple of women are raggedy in the face. But that’s a promotion at Fox News.”
Wood was self-deprecating, as well, pointing out that not everyone in the room knew exactly who he was.
“Half this room thinks I’m Kenan Thompson,” he joked. “The other half think I’m Louis Armstrong. President Biden thinks I’m the daddy on ‘Family Matters.’”
Here’s a quick recap of some more of Wood’s best jabs of the evening:
On George Santos: “I’d like to stop right now, and congratulate tonight’s top scholarship recipient: Arizona State senior George Santos. Oh yeah, George couldn’t be here tonight. He’s auditioning for “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” We say good luck to you, George.”
On Ron DeSantis: “Ron, everybody knows how to do politics. This is America. We don’t pass laws. You make a promise to voters. And then you don’t do it. That’s what the great leaders in this room understand.”
On Critical Race Theory: “Ask any Republican [to] try to explain CRT, they sound like a Democrat trying to explain the charges against Trump.”
Another Biden dig: “When the retirement age went up two years to 64 [in France] they rioted because they didn’t want to work till 64. Meanwhile in America, we have an 80-year-old man begging us for four more years of work.”
On Mike Pence: The only thing I know about Mike Pence is he’s really good at playing hide-and-seek at the capitol. You’ve got to be crafty to catch Mike Pence at the capitol. He know all the nooks and crannies.”
On the struggling media industry: “Paramount Global right now is considering offers from Byron Allen and Tyler Perry to purchase BET. That’s how bad it is out there. These companies are so broke they’ve giving BET back to Black people. Which by the way, is not what we meant when we said Black people wanted reparations. We meant cash, you can give it to us in [the] Harriet Tubman twenties.”
A Biden compliment?: “Say what you want about our president, but when he wakes up from that nap, work gets done.”
Wood followed in the footsteps of his former boss Noah, who hosted the dinner last year—the first since 2019 and the first with a sitting president in attendance since 2016. he also follows in the footsteps of former “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart. Since Noah’s sudden departure from the longtime Comedy Central late-night show, some have floated Wood’s name as a permanent replacement. If Saturday night was any indication, he seems to be up to the task.
