Roy Wood Jr.’s Best Jokes From the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Last Night, Ranked
It’s possible we no longer live in a world where a comedian can shock us at the White House Correspondents Dinner. But shock wasn’t what Roy Wood Jr. was after last night. “When humor is the weapon being swung, the entire room becomes allies,” he told NPR earlier this week. “So I have to build rapport first, and then I have to turn around and try to figure out ways to subvert it and kind of tear it down and build it up again.”
Did he pull it off? Wood was perfectly funny/fine last night, taking shots at both sides of the aisle with well-crafted jokes and a sly delivery. A cackling Joe Biden clearly thought Wood killed. But we’ll have to wait and see if his remarks moved the needle or simply served as a pretty good Daily Show monologue that ran 15 minutes long. In the meantime, here are our favorite Roy Wood Jr. jokes from last night, ranked…
On Extra Papers Left on the Dais
“Mr. President, I think you left some of your classified documents up here.”
On Tucker Carlson
“The untouchable Tucker Carlson is out of a job. Some people celebrate it. But to Tucker’s staff, I want you to know that I know what you’re feeling. I work at The Daily Show so I too have been blindsided by the sudden departure of the host of a fake-news-program.”
“They rioted because they didn’t want to work until 64. Meanwhile in America, we have an 80-year-old man begging us for four more years of work.”
On Kamala Harris
“The most insulting scandal to fall to the feet of the Biden Administration was placed at the feet of our Madam vice president, the scandal of ‘What does Kamala do?’ Which is a disrespectful question. That's a disrespectful question because nobody ever asked that question of the vice president until a woman got the job.”
“Keeping up with Trump scandals is like watching Star Wars movies. You got to watch the third one to understand the first one, then you got — you can’t miss the second one because it’s got Easter eggs for the fifth one.”
On CNN Parting Ways with Don Lemon
“Don Lemon released a statement saying he got fired from CNN. Then CNN released a statement saying that they offered Don a meeting. They had to part ways because Don Lemon can’t even accurately report a story about Don Lemon.”
“Drag queens are not at a school to groom your kids. Stop it. And even if they were, most of them kids gonna get shot at school, it ain’t no problem.”
“President Biden thinks I’m the dad from Family Matters.”
On Critical Race Theory
“Anti-CRT policies are an attack on Black history and an attempt to erase the contributions of Black people from the history books. That’s what it is. You are trying to erase Black people, and a lot of Black people wouldn’t mind some of that erasure as long as that Black person is Clarence Thomas.”
On Not Wanting to Get Caught Up in Billion-Dollar Lawsuits
“Let me just say right now my favorite voting machine is Dominion voting machines. When I go to the polls, I make sure it is a Dominion machine that I use. If your election needs the truth, put Dominion in your booth.”
