Donald Trump has hired joke writers to help his “roast” set during Saturday’s annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner — his first-ever while president.
That’s according to daughter-in-law and former RNC chair Lara Trump, who told Meghan McCain on Monday that the dinner is a “full-circle moment” for the president and that he’s not going to “hold anything back.”
Sitting with “Citizen McCain” podcast hosts McCain and Miranda Wilkins, Lara Trump teased what to expect from her father-in-law’s highly anticipated appearance at the WHCA event as McCain wished for a “Comedy Central roast of a celebrity on acid.”
“I hope that he roasts every journalist in the room and I hope I can watch it and enjoy it, and I hope he just takes them all to task,” McCain said. “I’m really excited about it.”
“What I’ll say is people probably already know this about the president: He is one of the funniest people I have ever met,” Lara Trump said of Donald, emphasizing that “his jokes really hit” and “this is going to be a good time.”
“He’s there to have a good time. And I feel like it’s such a good full-circle moment for him because a lot of people like to get under the surface and say, ‘Oh, I think the reason Donald Trump actually ran is because of the Obama joke at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner all those years ago.’ So now he’s president and now he gets to go back,” Lara continued. “I love that he’s going, I think it’s great. And yeah, I think everyone should get ready because he’s going to do some roasting, and we know that he doesn’t hold anything back.”
That’s when Wilkins asked if the president is writing the roast material himself or if he’s hired joke writers to help him in the process.
“He’s got — it’s a combo,” Lara revealed. “He’s got some great people who he’s tapping to help him with this, but he comes up with a lot of good material. As you see on Truth Social, as you see, like, live in the flesh — himself.”
Former President Barack Obama famously roasted Trump in 2011 at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, mocking the then-reality TV star for his birtherism conspiracies by saying he also didn’t believe in the moon landing and thought Biggie and Tupac were still alive. The moment is said to have sparked Trump’s interest in political office.
“But all kidding aside, obviously, we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience,” Obama continued, railing against Trump. “For example — no, seriously, just recently, in an episode of ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ at the steakhouse, the men’s cooking team cooking did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around. But you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so ultimately, you didn’t blame Lil’ Jon or Meatloaf. You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir.”
In addition to being President Trump’s first appearance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner while in office, Saturday’s 2026 edition of the event further breaks with tradition by tapping mentalist Oz Pearlman as host rather than a comedian. (Past hosts include Seth Meyers, Colin Jost, Trevor Noah and other politically minded funny people.)
Back on “Citizen McCain,” the three women continued gushing about the president’s sense of humor and late-night Truth Social posts lampooning today’s political and media elite with yard school nicknames.
“We’ve always said, he’d have made an incredible judge on ‘Drag Race’ or something like that,” Wilkins said. “In a parallel universe he’d be an incredible insult comic.”
“Maybe after this,” Lara responded.
