My first announcement is one I think you've all been waiting for. Politicians have been lying and bullshitting and flip-flopping since the beginning of time. I am the President. Only I need to understand. I'm mostly pissed off that not enough people are pissed off. CHEERING Politicians are very visible and they tend to be liars, which is great, so you can really go after them. I (BLEEP) hate those assholes. It's making me angry and I feel like screaming. But I'm unsure about how far my neck veins can safely bulge out of my neck. Political humour, now that it's become such a farce, it's hard to out-do it. Yes, this is real life. This is really happening. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Able 2018 I cannot believe the men and women that we have chosen to be our leaders. You watch the in-house footage of these Congressional hearings and I think, "What sort of empty-headed Pez dispenser seance "am I watching here?" Politics is one of the most egregiously hypocritical areas of society, and thus great fodder for comedy. In the White House, in the Oval Office, on the wall Obama has the original copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, which I'm pretty sure is just there in case the Tea Party is, like, "We don't think you're free." "All right, look at the wall." Politicians are so loathsome but we're stuck with them. We can't prosecute all of them, so let's at least mock them. I believe if you can't say something nice about somebody you must be talking about Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump. Oh, my God. Donald Trump is like the nagging cough that has turned into full-blown AIDS, you know what I'm saying? I think every political comedian feels they're always different. It's very clear now that we have political comedians who are actually acting as advocates, and also really feel like it's important to speak truth to power. I ended up doing political comedy because when I'm angry, I'm funny. That just seems to be the deal, and politicians make me really angry. Democrats and Republicans believe that what they tell you about the fact is actually the fact itself. It isn't a (BLEEP) fact! We don't have anything to lose. We don't have to worry that the White House isn't going to give us access. We already don't have access, so we can say whatever we want. The reason that comedians pick on politics, it's almost like a prayer. "Hey, could you maybe not steer us off of the cliff? "But the only way that I can maybe keep you on it "is to make you look ridiculous so you'll stop what you're doing." I feel like George Bush can bring about the Biblical Apocalypse. Because here's the thing, I don't think Bush wants to be president. I think he wants to be the LAST president! Entering that realm puts you into a battle ground situation also with those who find what you're saying funny and relate to it because they agree with you and those that disagree with you, who don't find it funny or find it offensive. Well, until Jon Stewart and Colbert and Bill Maher, the best political satire was basically cartoonists. Just simply drawing someone in a ludicrous way in and of itself brings them down. Of course those things influence people, because most of us aren't good readers. HE LAUGHS We like a little grab. It's the pen and the balloon. It's puncturing pomposity and showing that the emperor has no clothes, things of that sort. Herblock did much more than just puncture pomposity. He illuminated hypocrisy. During the Watergate years, they were very incisive, very intelligent cartoons that Herblock wrote. And being from DC, writing from the Washington Post, that broke that story, made it even more important because it was one of the few places in a newspaper where you can tell it like it is. So, in the end, Herblock had a great deal to do with Nixon coming down. He had a lot of people who would complain to him. "That was outrageous." He had one answer. Every time, he'd say, "But it's true." Franklin... I can call you Franklin? Years ago, it was frowned upon then to make fun of the people running the country. They won't let anyone talk politics in here because this stadium was dedicated to art, sports and, uh, any useful enterprises. LAUGHTER Now, Mr Nixon won easily, and he wasn't even campaigning, which shows you how well a politician can do if he keeps his mouth shut. HE PLAYS PIANO Here we are. Reagan and Carter, huh? # What kind of choice is there Mark Russell would get up at his piano and make gentle fun at politicians, but so gentle that he could then go hang out with them afterwards. # Can it be true # No matter which one wins # The loser is me and you. # I would get criticised more often for being too gentle than for being too harsh. I was not a bomb thrower. I was not an anarchist. I was too safe. I kept seeing pictures of Kennedy and Khrushchev together, which... They looked like they needed a new caption. The pictures were fine. It looked like, you know, "Dad, may I have the keys to the car?" Mort Sahl was overtly political and partisan. The idea of the comedian really taking a stand, having a point of view, this was something new. When John Kennedy became president Mort Sahl was doing bits about Kennedy - many of them very hard-hitting - and people were surprised. He just saw himself as the guy whose job it was to go after whoever was in power, be they Republican, Democrat. Do you have an agent now? No, and I can't get one. No-one will handle you? The last agent I had was Freddie Fields who was, you know, a very able fellow, creative management. He said to me, "No agent can help you in the position you're in." I like a comedian who I'm truly not sure what side he's going to be on an issue. I'm not a fan of the stand-up comedian that just reaffirms the status quo. Do you believe entertainers should have opinions? Oh, yes. Should they express them? Definitely. They've got to have opinions, like everybody else. Do you think entertainers should exert political influence? If they want to. # The war in Vietnam keeps on a-ragin' # Blacks and whites still haven't worked it out... # The Smothers Brothers, you know, this was during the '60s, and to be on television at that time and to talk about the Vietnam War, the censors were after them all the time. Gee, Sarge, I understand now. I'm not afraid any more. I can kill. But I still can't vote. The Smothers Brothers was a great show, but it was taken off the air. If CBS has its way and we don't go on the air any more and there's nothing said about it, nobody else will come forward. There's no-one in the business trying to do anything that steps out or say anything. When the government starts censoring us, that's a real, genuine problem. Censoring an artist is the ultimate obscenity. 1 It's not OK to say she was asking for it. It's not OK to punch a hole in a wall to show your family who's boss. Or think you can demand their love and respect. And it's not OK to look the other way and say it's not our problem. Because it is our problem. And it's not OK. Ever. But it is OK to ask for help. With his good-natured ribbing of the First Family, Mr Vaughn Meader. IMITATES JFK: Well, I think Senator Goldwater is a fine man. I think he'd make a fine candidate in '64. 1864. I don't... LAUGHTER Vaughn Meader had come out with a record called The First Family in which he parodied JFK. But it was still a new thing to make fun of the President at all. IMITATES JFK: He's, uh, doing my gestures, and he's, uh, using my lines. "Do not ask what this country can do for you," that's one of my original lines. Yeah, I heard some of Mr Meader's record, but I thought it sounded more like Teddy than it did me. There's something very charmingly American about this idea that we really respect our political figures. But at the same time, we also kind of like to take them down a peg. Gerald Ford was like a football player. Like, he's like a really great athlete. But in the public's mind, once Chevy started doing Gerald Ford, I mean, try getting that toothpaste back in the tube. I do have two major announcements to make. Whoa! Uh-oh. No problem. No problem. No. As a kid, I didn't know anything about President Ford. I thought, "Oh, he's a clumsy idiot." No problem. Chevy's Ford, there was no attempt to make him look like Ford. He just played sort of a fatuous stumblebum. Chevy's portrayal may have made a difference. Will President Ford win again in '76? I don't think so. Do you? IMITATES JIMMY CARTER: My name is Jimmy Carter... and I'm running for president. Saturday Night Live, for a lot of its existence, has defined the comedic take on the President. Well, I personally try to be a lusty, zesty kind of president... ..full of the... Hi, baby. How are you? IMITATES RONALD REAGAN: Well, it was nice meeting you. Come on, Lisa. Come on. Bye-bye. Bye. Back to work! Whoever's doing that impression on Saturday Night Live, that becomes everybody's impression of the President. IMITATES BILL CLINTON: Lobster boy, I feel your pain. IMITATES GEORGE W BUSH: Ah! Man, it's cool. I'm going to be president. That's wicked. Will Ferrell's depiction of George W Bush in my opinion made him seem cooler, made him seem a lot more relatable. And, you know, maybe a little silly, but, you know, warm-hearted. IMITATES GEORGE BUSH: But we got to get ready to debate Al Gore. Polls say you're neck and neck. I'm a uniter, not a divider. I'm a uniter, not a divider. I'm a uniter, not a divider. Snap out of it! Everybody knew that Bush was sort of challenged when it came to the English language. Strategery. But Darrell's Gore said something that was unhelpful to Gore. IMITATES AL GORE: Rather than squander the surplus on a risky tax cut for the wealthy, I would put it in what I call a lock box. The sort of slightly superior repetition of "lock box" sort of said something to Americans about Gore that is responsible for the 500 votes in Florida. I love those hockey moms. You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull - lipstick. Democrats were petrified of Sarah Palin. She had a rousing speech at the Republican Convention, and it took Tina Fey putting on a wig. She was really the takedown of Sarah Palin. It was Tina Fay that took her down. IMITATES SARAH PALIN: Oh, are not doing the talent portion? PLAYS TUNE How will you solve the financial crisis being a maverick? You know, we're going to take every aspect of the crisis and look at it, and then we're going to ask ourselves "What would a maverick do in this situation?" One study just out showed Sarah Palin's favourability rating dropped a few points after viewers watched an SNL spoof of the governor. I think Tina Fey destroyed that woman's political career. Destroyed it. God bless her. IMITATES BERNIE SANDERS: We're doomed! We need a revolution! Millions of people on the streets! And we got to do something and we got to do it now! Ah! After the first debate, my agent called me on the phone and I started talking like Bernie. And he said, "Oh, my God. That's so funny." He said, "You make a video of it, put it on the internet," blah-blah, hits and all this. I said, "No, it's not that... No, I don't want to do that." "You know, it's more of an SN... " Before I even got the L out of my mouth, he hung up the phone, and 10 minutes later Lorne Michaels called, so that was it. Oh, my God! Mr Bernie Sanders! Oh, I'm your biggest fan! SHE COUGHS I'm telling you, I'm feeling the Bern! Eh, that's OK. DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS Caricatures are fun because you don't have to give the back-story. You can get right to the punch line. You know what Donald Trump is. IMITATES DONALD TRUMP: I'm going to start this debate in the quietest voice possible. In the past I've been big and loud, but tonight I am a sweet, little baby Trump. I think what he's done well, it's just funny, it's entertaining. SNL is a topical show where they deal with what people are looking at. In an election cycle, that's what people are looking at. It just seems to make sense. Our first question is for you, and it is about reproductive rights. They're ripping babies out of vaginas. Oh, my God! Trump's fun because Trump is just saying rubbish, and Hillary is a little shifty. It's not just the person doing a great impersonation. It's got to be a great person to impersonate. That's the power of SNL. It's been a de facto branding of political candidates. Has SNL ever really changed somebody's vote? That's a question that I think about all the time. Got it! (OVERLAPPING BROADCASTS) Cable news turned politics into sport. They became so predictable and partisan that it left this vacuum of, like, "Is anyone going to talk about what's actually going on?" The President boasted at the top of his press conference last night that we had the support now of Britain and Spain for our attack on Iraq, because, you know, when you want to make it perfectly clear to the world that you're not an imperialist, the people you want in your corner are Britain and Spain. He was before Jon Stewart and he was the young, hip, hot, telling-it-like-it-is guy. Did you see that press conference? I don't want to say there was nothing new there, but at one point the closed captioning actually said, "Blah-blah-blah-blah." That is really a political show. He doesn't even make any bones about the fact that he's going right into the teeth of it. Please! Don't run for president. Please, Ralph! Ralph! Because you're a great American, don't run. Please. Bill Maher takes the meet the press, talking heads around a table format. He turns it on its head. He says the shit that no-one else is going to say and he does it in an entertaining way. Over the next month, let us know which of these bloated ticks on America's hide... needs to be burned off with the mighty cigarette of democracy. Mostly comedians try to stay in the middle so they can appeal to both sides, but Bill is fearless. I think Colin Powell could be the guy, if he wanted to, to run against Obama. Boy, that would make Russia's head explode. Two black... ? He's got a point of view. It's not a straight line. He's not just a straight-up lefty. He does criticise both sides. Sweet Grandma Hillary. She would have done fine in 2008, but this year the voters are not in the mood for steady as she goes. They're pitchfork-angry and they don't want America's nicest grandma. Now, you've been pretty tough on President Obama too. Yeah, I mean, that's my job, is to hold their feet to the fire no matter what party and who is in power. He's as loved as he is hated, so he's doing it right. Jon Stewart changed the face of late-night comedy in America, and he altered the trajectory of the humour. You wonder sometimes... how our government puts on its pants in the morning. The value of satire and comedy when it regards the government is important in the sense of by finding the funny of the situation that is happening, we find the truth. I was not elected to serve one party. You were not elected. LAUGHTER AND CHEERING That was a turning point? The elections? Not for the country. For Comedy Central. For us. For you. Yeah. Yeah. Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. It was the first George W Bush term. The Iraq War was just starting. There is this sense of everybody kind of blindly going toward this thing and nobody really being willing to criticise. And Jon Stewart, he was willing to call it like he saw it. Osama bin Laden declared war on America, and then came the attacks. How I wish the administration at that time... in those years... had done something. Yes. Although I think... there were... other warnings too that came later. I believe the title was Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside The United States. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE That was it. I think that was the one. I think that was the name of it. He was really adept at serving it up to show either hypocrisy, abuse of power, and it connected for people. Is tonight the night that they exploit 9/11? Or has tonight inspired empty promises for the future? I love to have a story broken down for me in a different way. The news can get really dark the deeper you go. That's why I loved Jon so much. That's why I loved The Daily Show so much. You're doing theatre when you should be doing debate, which would be great. You do... What you do is not honest. What you do is partisan hackery. You've got to be kidding me! You're on CNN! The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls! What is wrong with you? All the comedians that came out of Stewart's shop, the Larry Wilmores, the John Olivers the Samantha Bees, they're saying what they feel, they're very passionate, they're very pointed and often very partisan - and I think they make no bones about it. On this show, your voice will be heard... in the form of my voice. Cos you're looking at a straight shooter, America. I tell it like it is. I calls 'em like I sees them. I will speak to you in plain, simple English. And that brings us to tonight's word. What Colbert did was remarkable because he was playing a very arch character that was obviously based on Fox News personalities. Caution. You are about to enter the no-spin zone. This is all an act. You're breaking my heart, Bill. I'm sensitive. You know, I'm... If you're an act, then what am I? Oh... But with this character, he was improvising everything in real time from an inverse point of view. A lot of right wingers thought that Colbert actually is a Republican and he's just cheeky. They didn't know that it was a joke. I mean, come on! President Bush - great president... or the greatest president. He did that classic satire thing. I'm going to make my points through the other side. Are you familiar with what we do here? I am. OK. Yes. There are comedians who have the credibility and have the ability to tap into things that are happening right this second, you know. It couldn't be more urgent. It couldn't be more on people's minds. They want somebody to say something about it. So, we turn to them, and we're so desperate for it that it then spills out into the society also. Do you think it's fair to say that the majority of lobbyists are, like, good, average people, and moms? Yes. What? What are you talking about? I feel like you're living in a fantasy world. Do birds dress you every morning? You can say the things that journalists literally can't say on camera. They do have to be professional about it. I do not have to be professional about it. I am making a comedy show. My job is much easier. Political comedy has become a part of the mainstream discussion. I've called you Dick and I've called you Mr Vice President and Mr Nixon. And I'm sorry, I shouldn't be so informal on the air. What should I... ? What would be proper? Why should I call you? Jack, I wouldn't really worry about that. I've been called everything. LAUGHTER The intersection of politics and comedy, especially on late night, is a two-way street. On the one hand, the audience and the shows themselves are interested to get to know politicians. But I think that there's a pull for politicians to use that vehicle as a way of humanising themselves. The first job of the candidate is to get elected. And sometimes you'll see the most dignified men do some of the craziest things. Good evening. I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not. Good evening. I'm Gerald Ford, and you're not. The public likes to feel that... that individual who holds the office, or that individual who's hoping to achieve the office, is kind of one of them. HE PLAYS A SAX SOLO When Bill Clinton played his saxophone on Arsenio, he didn't look like a presidential candidate. He looks like the guy that would be a guest on that show. One of the reasons Clinton was successful was he had some ability to connect with popular culture. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE The big man! Since we have a deficit that's enormous and it needs to be brought down, I think we have to raise some more money. You can't raise money on the middle class cos their taxes went up an their incomes went down in the '80s. It's definitely part of the campaign trail for a politician to be on late-night, to be on SNL. It's just become part of the job. Are you tired of this campaign at this point? - I know I am. - LAUGHTER A lot of what has happened is we're just more familiar with our public figures in all sorts of ways. The 44th President of the United States. Please welcome President Barack Obama. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE President Obama was the first sitting president to go on a late-night talk show. Now it's inconceivable that a presidential candidate wouldn't go on a late-night talk show, When is the dog coming? I keep hearing about the dog. Listen, this is Washington. That was a campaign promise. Oh, wow! Wow! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Man! No, no, no, no. Politics is and always has been a performing art. And it is... ego-dominated, it is needy, it is narcissistic. All the "going on shows" - this is nothing new. This is just a form of baby kissing. Loosening your tie, rolling up your sleeves to show you're a regular guy. What's up, gangstas? It's the... It's the M-I-Double-Tizzle. I host a talk show, and I love having politicians on because you can ask them personal questions. These are things that you don't typically see when they're on 60 Minutes or a show like that. I know you support states' rights to legalise marijuana. You've also said you smoked it a couple times and it's not your thing. What is your thing? Do you have a thing? Yeah. My thing is my grandchildren. Your grandchildren? Yeah. I have... You smoke your grandchildren? They want to see that you have a sense of humour about yourself and that you're human. That's all they want to see. They don't want you to be a master of dialects. HE LAUGHS That's not their idea of the President. Comedy shows - I just don't see the President going on one of those. They're beneath his dignity. CHEERING When President Obama took office, the general plan - if you had a piece of policy you wanted to pass, an agenda item - was either do a straight news interview or do a big speech or some combination of those things. And those are still valuable. But the difference now is they're just more tools in the tool box. You can create your own content. You want to reach audiences where they're consuming their information and their news and entertainment. Sorry I had to cancel a few times. The President is President in a completely new media landscape where you have kids who don't even watch television any more, they're watching stuff on their mobile devices. Good to be with you, Zach. Obamacare was already sort of vilified by half the country. We needed a water-cooler moment to say, "Yes, we know the website didn't work, but it works now." The President realised that, in order to communicate, you had to do it in the venues where people are and with Between Two Ferns, you had a programme that, you know, tens of millions of people watch. What is it like to be the last black President? Seriously? What's it like for this to be the last time you ever talked to a President? It must kind of stink, though, that you can't run, you know, three times, you know? Actually, I think it's a good idea. You know, if I ran a third time, it would be sort of like doing a third Hangover movie. Didn't really work out very well, did it? The big thing with it was it was actually funny, and I couldn't believe that I was actually laughing. How long have you had that? Oh, just four months. Zach, you need to get that checked right away. You need to get on healthcare.gov, because... that's one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen. Is your plug finally over? CHEERING We need to have separation from these people, and I think whenever they come on, it sort of says, like, "Hey, I'm in on the joke! I'm OK." And some of these people aren't OK. Trump returns to NBC this weekend to host Saturday Night Live, in spite of growing protest. When public figures cross certain lines, they should lose their privileges to host TV shows. CHEERING Yes! Donald Trump, everybody! Yes, it can humanise people that some people say shouldn't be humanised. Of course, always half of the people say, "That person shouldn't be humanised." Aww, Trump can be a total sweetheart with someone who has no reason to be terrified of him. Huh. I notice there were no cutaway shots to The Roots. I wonder why. - Network execs... - APPLAUSE Yeah. Especially now, comedians have more of a responsibility because they have more power than before. You can reach people with comedy. And you know it all goes back to Spider-Man, right? You know, "with great power comes great responsibility," and so I think more and more comedians are asking themselves, "How do I want to use my comedy for something "beyond just getting a laugh?" Is there anything to people giving you a hard time for being too soft on Trump with your questions? Yeah. Well... I'm never... I mean, have you seen my show? I'm never too hard on anyone. Stay tuned to the 1/2 Hour News Hour, coming up next, right here on the Fox News Channel. And if you don't, we'll invade your countries, kill your leaders and convert you to Christianity. Why can't conservatives make a funny comedy show? I don't know. I do not know. I'm sure they're just hilarious in their own way. The 1/2 Hour News Hour may offend the following. Whether you're a Tea Party guy or an Occupy Wall Street guy, I think that there's opportunities to find humour. There's a lot of comedians on the right side of the aisle that do a really great job at it as well. Do you think our founding fathers would have put up with any of this shit? They were blowing people's heads off because they put a tax on their breakfast beverage. You can be on the right and just be talking and not have to identify yourselves as the right. What is the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, other than the Right-Wing Comedy Tour? "We need to do something about the way we livin' - "we heatin' up the earth." Oh, shut up. "Well, you seen what happened in Washington DC - "27 inches of snow. Explain that." All right. February. How's that? Entertainers tend to be left-wing in their politics. And the reason for that is it's a happier message. They are audience pleasers, even those who make a point of "upsetting the audience". As a right-wing hate-monger, it's fantastic to be at a big Hollywood shindig with all these glittering celebrities that isn't a fundraiser for Obama. Historically, what we would call right-wing politics tends to be more about protecting the status quo. And I think good comedy is about attacking the status quo - questioning it, challenging it, satirising it. In just eight years, I've given you enough material for 20 years. The President does this speech every year at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Historically speaking, this is the most, like, disgusting display of elites in a room together, right? It's journalists, members of Congress, Cabinet members, and the President typically does this speech that makes them all laugh, so it's all inside jokes and they're all kind of toasting to their power. It's kind of the worst of Washington, is this speech, How about another hand for the President? You have this mix of reporters, who know all the ins and outs of every political story. Then you have all these celebrity guests and they're coming in with a totally different sense. And so figuring out what's going to appeal to everyone is definitely tricky. Ladies and gentlemen, here with a special edition of The Colbert Report - Stephen Colbert. I think if you show up at the Press Correspondents' Dinner, you'd better go for their throat, and you'd better risk being booed. And that's what I loved about what Colbert did. I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least and, by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq. LAUGHTER Stephen Colbert at that White House Correspondents' Dinner, I watched with deep jealousy. Here he was, doing subversive, brilliant humour, not just about but to a sitting commander-in-chief. It's not easy to stand up in front of a room full of people who you know you're going to say crazy things about. It's very difficult, and he delivered it and it was fantastic. And we all appreciated it. I certainty did. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg. I watched it at home, and they cut away to the audience, and they're just... "Huh? What?" They didn't get the joke, so you're screwed from Jump Street. But it was his character - that's the character he does. What did you... ? Who did you buy? Thank you very much. Good night. I don't know if it's a good thing that comedians and politicians get together in that room because I think it definitely makes you pull your punches a little bit. It was Bush's last one that I did. I was sitting on the dais, and I was going to open with this joke, and I get talked out of it by a lot of people. "It's great to be here with Bush and Cheney and all this, "cos this line-up won't be seen again until the trial." And they said, "No, don't do that joke," and I wish I'd done that fuckin' joke. I can't tell you how excited I am to be here tonight. Now, I realise many of you may not share that excitement, given that you have no idea who I am. That's a very odd night, because I've done it a couple times. You know, that's kind of a tough room. Even though his poll numbers are at an historic low, the speaker is writing another book. Once again, he's taking a one-dollar advance. Not voluntarily - that's the most he could get. They're as uptight as a group can be. You could do whatever you want to open a sphincter, all right? And it's not going to happen. In Washington, there are people who live to be offended. Comedians don't live to be offended. They live to offend. Hosting the White House Correspondents Dinner was the most scared I've ever been as a performer, with the exception of my first appearance on The Letterman Show. Mr President, you remember... ? You remember when the country rallied around you in hopes of a better tomorrow? That was hilarious. LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE That was your best one yet. Jordan and I were just like, "This is not fair. "Obama should be able to say what he wants, but because of "the climate of the world and the racial spectrum that we live "in the United States, he can't, So we'll do it for him." I invited Luther, my anger translator to join me here tonight. CHEERING We knew that this was something President Obama was really going to enjoy. He may have felt that he could use an anger translator for real a few times. Now he actually had one. We count on the press to shed light on the most important issues of the day. And we can count on Fox News to terrify old white people with some nonsense! It was amazing. It was earth shattering. The best way to describe the feeling is satisfaction. Nonstop focus on billionaire donors creates real problems for our democracy. And that's why we're running for a third term! No, no we're not. We're not? No. Who the hell said that?! Donald Trump is here tonight. I had just started at the White House and I got the final draft, and it had all this new stuff about Donald Trump that Judd Apatow and Jon Lovett had written together. I just remember thinking, like, "Whoa, this is going to be a lot different "than the draft I saw before that." Just recently in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice, you, Mr Trump, fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. You do find the Correspondents' Dinner where the President goes up to that line and doesn't cross it. And your folks who go to that line and absolutely do cross it. 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. Comedians can say things that other people can't say. They're allowed to be furious in a way that politicians are not. At the Correspondents' Dinner that Seth Meyers hosted, I wrote with him on it, and I thought that we sort of hobbled Trump, but it turns out that's his origin story. It was that night that he apparently decided to run for president. So I'm sorry. I humbly and gratefully accept your nomination for the Presidency of the United States. Here we are, ladies and gentlemen, the end of the election. Can you believe it? What a year tonight has been. Right now I know you guys don't have your phones or anything in here, but right now, the election is too close to call, and too terrifying to contemplate. The huge story is that Trump has outperformed expectations in early results. The nay... This one is a nail biter and a passport grabber. It's nice to be able to laugh in the face of something that you think is really serious. You can go down a crazy rabbit hole of feelings about certain issues or people. You need levity. Six more electoral votes for Donald Trump this evening. 228. 209. He is now on the doorstep of 270 electoral votes. Wow. Wow. That's a horrifying prospect. I can't put... I cannot put a... I can't put a happy face on that, and that's my job. CNN can report that Hillary Clinton has called Donald Trump to concede the race. I don't necessarily think that comedy can change minds, but I do believe that if you're on a tipping point, then you can give someone ammunition, and that ammunition is conversation. In general, I am hopeful for President Trump, because hope is always the best possible path to take. And one thing that makes me hopeful is we know from interviews he's given over the years that he has at any given point held every position on every issue. He's been pro-choice, pro-life, for the Iraq War, against the Iraq War. Pretty much his only consistent position has been anti-Rosie O'Donnell. If it makes people see things through a different lens, that's great. It's beneficial. I don't want to say it's not beneficial, but if I thought that that was our main goal, we would just stop doing jokes and collapse inwardly. And please don't even think of writing something stupid like, "What a lucky break a Trump Presidency is for comedians. "The jokes just write themselves!" No, no, no. Shut up! Jokes don't write themselves. Jews write jokes and they are scared shitless. CHEERING The only responsibility is to tell the story correctly, to get your facts straight so that you have that credibility. The show is not intended to... SHE SIGHS ..make change. You know, it's not... that's not my intention. That's not my job. Our job is to do a comedy show that's interesting. I think if a man gets up and says he's going to lead the greatest country in the world, 180 million people, he is subject to analysis, and sometimes criticism. I think that's fair. After all, he has the compensation of the country to play with for between four and eight years. The goal of comedy is to entertain and be funny, to tap into commentary about what's going on - either politicians specifically or media coverage. That's where it starts to resonate for people on a deeper level. And we're angry, and we're crazy for exactly the same reason - because the Democrats make us angry, and the Republicans make us crazy. Or switch it around if you wish. Whatever makes you fuckin' laugh. You know, the power of comedy when it comes to politics, in my opinion, is just getting people to pay attention. Young people generally don't care about politics. So when you get them laughing, hopefully you're getting them to the polls, getting them caring about issues that they can actually have an impact on. But, look, you know what, I do understand that any country that lets me run my mouth the way I do in public deserves to be saved. I'm trying. If you're good, you are a truth-sayer, and even though you're doing it with humour, you're going right up to the line. So it's a very, very courageous thing to do. Comedy and politics - we're married. It shows the true spirit of what our democracy is. You know, we're not afraid to make fun of the people that are in power. I think that's beautiful. OFF CAMERA: What are your impressions of the night that is the White House of Correspondents' Dinner? Do you think that Donald Trump will invite me to be his comedian? SHE GASPS I can't wait to find out. You go to the Democratic Convention, you got Sarah Silverman up there being real funny, and then you go to the Republican one, and you're getting Chachi. Was it Chachi? I think it was Chachi. The transition from comedian to Senator made sense to me - not so much right away to voters in Minnesota. I won the first one by 312 votes. That's funny. HE LAUGHS