Though the 2017 White House Correspondents’ Dinner is still on, Donald Trump hasn’t acknowledged whether or not he’ll deign to join the “dishonest media” and peddlers of “fake news” at the traditional event that unites the press and the president every year. Full Frontal’s Samantha Bee, an outspoken Trump critic, is already planning her own alternative dinner to ensure that the president will at least be properly ridiculed, regardless of who headlines the official event. But there is at least one comedian who wouldn’t mind an invitation to the real thing: Stephen Colbert.
The Late Show host famously headlined the 2006 dinner in character as his alter ego, the conservative pundit “Stephen Colbert,” delivering a sarcastic, blistering roast of the Bush administration and a largely unamused crowd of reporters. Now, he told Variety, he’d “love” to do it again.
“Everyone who wasn’t in that room loved [the 2006 speech],” said Colbert, borrowing one of Trump’s own spin tactics. But it’s true that despite the chilly reception he received from the audience, video of his performance quickly went viral and became one of the most memorable speeches ever to come out of the annual event.
Colbert has said that he’d be willing to have Trump on the Late Show again, but that he’d have to interview him “with some modicum of respect, because he is the president of the United States.” But given that Colbert had no qualms about mocking George W. Bush to his face—and that he has already ridiculed Trump’s policies, compared him to a Nazi, and accused him of stealing Colbert’s old Colbert Report persona—Trump might be less than willing to sit by and listen to Colbert’s jokes.
That’s probably why Colbert isn’t expecting an invitation to repeat his performance at this year’s dinner, though he said it would be “an honor.” “I mean, when else are you going to stand next to the president and make jokes?” said Colbert. “But no one will ever ask again.”
Colbert made his comments to Variety at a benefit concert for the Montclair Film Festival, for which Colbert’s wife, Evelyn, serves as board president. He followed up with a performance of—appropriately enough—the Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime.”
