Amber Ruffin is no longer hosting the 2025 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and honestly, she’s totally fine with it.
During a recent episode of CNN’s Have I Got News For You, the comedian and Late Night with Seth Meyers writer was asked to address her recent dismissal from the gig, which came shortly after she publicly criticized President Donald Trump and his administration.
“I mean, oh my God. I could f—ing talk for the next three hours,” Ruffin said. “I lost the gig because I was out here talking s—. And I think it’s a good thing that I lost the gig because I was gonna show up there and act all the way out.”
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Still, Ruffin noted that she’d much rather be able to express her personal beliefs freely without having to try to take equal shots at both sides of the political aisle.
“It’s not anyone’s fault because when I was hired we were like, ‘Aww, yeah, we’ll give to everybody.’ And I was like, ‘Bet,’” she explained. “Then they started f—ing disappearing people to a prison in El Salvador. They rolled back civil rights. So I was like, ‘If I make this equal, then I’m also a piece of s—. I can’t f—ing do that.’”
Last week, the White House Correspondents’ Association announced that Ruffin would no longer serve as this year’s featured entertainer, just days after Ruffin spoke out about President Donald Trump’s policies.
“The W.H.C.A. board has unanimously decided we are no longer featuring a comedic performance this year,” the association’s president, Eugene Daniels, wrote to its members, per The New York Times. “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.”
The decision came just one day after White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich slammed Ruffin on social media for criticizing the Trump administration, calling her a “2nd rate comedian” and the dinner a “hate-filled and violence-inspiring event.”
Alongside his post, Budowich shared a clip from Ruffin’s recent appearance on The Daily Beast podcast, wherein she called the Trump administration “kind of a bunch of murderers” and said that she wasn’t going to be feigning impartiality by pulling her punchlines.
“They were like, you need to be equal and make sure that you give it to both sides and blah, blah, blah,” she said at the time. “I was like, there’s no way I’m going to be freaking doing that, dude, under no circumstances.”
Ruffin’s Have I Got News For You cohost Michael Ian Black called out the White House Correspondents’ Association’s “cowardly” decision to let her go while discussing the incident on the show.
“I would say as your friend and coworker, I very much was looking forward to you bringing your form and your tremendous sense of humor to the event. I think you would’ve been acerbic in the best possible way,” he added. “I’m very upset that they were as cowardly about this as they were and if I could tell them anything, I would just say, ‘I’m available.’”
Over the years, the White House Correspondents’ Dinner has been hosted by a collection of comedians, including Colin Jost, Trevor Noah, and Stephen Colbert. It is set to be held on April 26 at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C. Watch Ruffin reflect on her firing in the video above.
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