WHCD host Roy Wood Jr. hints at joke targets

Comedian Roy Wood Jr. dropped a few hints Friday morning about which Washington elites and recent events he’ll poke fun at while he hosts the White House Correspondents’ Dinner Saturday night.

During an appearance on CNN, Wood played along when host Kaitlan Collins asked him who his targets were for the high-profile gig.

“I know what you're trying to ask me, and I'm trying to answer it without answering,” Wood said with a laugh. “I’ve got to talk about everything this week. There was a lot of stuff that happened this week. Many things that happened this week, and those things have to be discussed in a fair way, in a very fair way.”

“Kevin McCarthy, I think, is bracing for that,” Collins responded, referring to the House speaker’s debt ceiling battle this week. “So don’t worry.”

“Trust me, I'm not finna lose my job. I'm not trying to get in trouble. OK, that's the most important part of the correspondents' dinner: Leave employed,” he said.

Wood also mentioned President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign launch on Tuesday, the shuttering of Buzzfeed News, the firings of Fox News host Tucker Carlson and CNN host Don Lemon, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' ongoing feud with Disney.

He said part of the host's job is balancing serious topics with comedy, pointing to the detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested in Russia on espionage charges last month. Gershkovich's detention will be a major topic at the dinner.

Wood told NPR’s Morning edition that in past weeks, he also considered addressing former President Donald Trump's indictment, ProPublica's report on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' lavish vacations on the dime of a GOP megadonor and the layoffs at ESPN.

No matter how hard the jokes hit, though, the comedian said he doesn’t expect the audience’s most powerful to walk away with a change of heart.

“Do you think the Ron DeSantis jokes I got in the clip for tomorrow — you think that Ron Desantis, [will say] you know what, man, you're right, go on and put the Black history back in them books?” Wood told NPR. “He's fighting Mickey Mouse, you can't change that person's mind with a joke,” he added, before conceding that “it’s possible.”

But at the end of the night, he only hopes people walk away with a laugh.

"The rest of it I can't control," Wood said on CNN. "It'd be great if I got Black people reparations at the end, like if Joe Biden came up to the podium, like, 'You know what? That was hilarious. All right, Black people, reparations.'"