Amber Ruffin defended her “Late Night” boss Seth Meyers on CNN Wednesday over his 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner roast of Donald Trump that many say helped push the businessman into politics.
Ruffin was announced Tuesday as the 2025 emcee for the dinner, and while Trump refused to attend during his first term, “The Lead” host Jake Tapper asked the comedian if Meyers’ hand in what he called “the Trump origin story” gives her “any pause when it comes to choosing” her targets at the mic.
“I am a writer on ‘Late Night With Seth Meyers.’ Seth Meyers is a friend of mine. He got us into this mess. It’s his fault,” Ruffin joked of the late night host’s political impact. “When you’re looking for someone to blame, blame my boss.”
But Ruffin did take a moment of pause to reflect that Meyers was ultimately just doing his job and that to weigh the unknowable consequences of that “can not be your job.”
“No, he did what he had to do. Like, you can’t, it can not be your job to razz people and then this man comes along and is like, ‘I’m going to be president.’ You have to laugh!” Ruffin said. “And I mean, ultimately, joke’s on us, isn’t it?”
In 2011, Trump was in the audience at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner memorably hosted by Meyers, who along with then-President Barack Obama mocked him “viciously,” Tapper recalled. “Mocked him into running for president, some might say.”
One joke, which you can watch below from Meyers’ set, went: “Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke.”
In selecting Ruffin to host this year’s dinner, WHCA president Eugene Daniels said in a Tuesday statement that “she has the ability to walk the line between blistering commentary and humor all while provoking her audience to think about the important issues of the day.” The comedian told Tapper she intends to continue walking that line at the April 26 event “the same way I always do it: by just telling the truth about how I feel.”
“I feel like we all feel a little sad — well, some of us feel pretty happy, but a lot of us feel a little sad. And I think it’s OK to say exactly what it is that’s making us feel this way,” Ruffin said. “I think when you do that, and people feel the same way as you do, they think that it is fun and funny and it feels good to hear. And that’s kind of where I operate from.”
As far as whether or not she hopes Trump will be in attendance, Ruffin was enthusiastic in her dissent.
“No! Don’t nobody want — no one wants that. I mean, sure, it’s something to do,” she said. “I can’t imagine he would. I can’t imagine he would. He should! He’s missing out on one of the cool things about being the president of the United States, but I don’t know that anyone’s looking forward to being in the same room as him.”
Watch a clip from Ruffin’s CNN interview in the video below:
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