Tonight, the White House Correspondents’ Association is hosting its annual star-studded dinner, which is both affectionately and derisively referred to as #NerdProm on social media. The Dinner began many decades ago, in 1920, and is typically held on the last Saturday in April at the Washington [D.C.] Hilton.
At the WHCA Dinner, the President is expected to serve as the nation’s Comedian-in-Chief, delivering self-deprecating jokes as well as jabs at the opposition party. Barack Obama has been an especially good Comedian-in-Chief during his tenure as President of the United States, with routines that have been well-received, especially online, as Lloyd Grove noted in a recent piece for The Daily Beast.
The President is traditionally followed onstage by a comedian selected by the White House Correspondents’ Association to anchor the program. Last year, Cecily Strong of Saturday Night Live performed; this year, Larry Wilmore (host of the Comedy Central program The Nightly Show) was selected to follow the President.
Wilmore’s predecessor in the 11:30 PM half-hour, Stephen Colbert, headlined the Dinner ten years ago, and his blunt, no-holds-barred performance there in the character of a faux pundit helped propel him to greater fame and stardom. Today, he is the host of The Late Show on CBS, having succeeded David Letterman.
If you’d like to watch Obama and Wilmore’s remarks at the Dinner, but don’t have cable, C-SPAN has you covered: they’re streaming the whole thing online here.