Donald Trump decided on a mentalist, not a comedian, for entertainment at WHCD 2026. So Kimmel delivers the brutal roast on his own stage
No comedians? No problem.
Donald Trump is set to attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on April 25, 2026, but the event won’t include its usual centerpiece – a comedian roasting the president. Instead, the White House Correspondents’ Association picked mentalist Oz Pearlman as the headliner. Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t having it. On his show, the late-night host delivered a nine-minute roast of Trump and his administration, filling the comedy void the WHCA left wide open.
According to The Daily Beast, Kimmel kicked off his monologue by calling Trump “a delicate snowflake with the thinnest fat skin of any human being ever,” explaining why the dinner’s organizers skipped hiring a comedian this year. To make up for the missing laughs, Kimmel stepped in, serving up jokes that covered everything from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal to Trump’s foreign policy moves.
One of the sharpest lines came when he deadpanned, “By the way, before we go any further: Melania, this is Donald. Donald, this is Melania,” before dropping, “That was my impression of Jeffrey Epstein.”
The roast didn’t spare Trump’s ego, or his hands
Kimmel quipped, “Don’t worry, if we bruise your ego, it’ll only make your hands look less disgusting.” He also took a direct shot at Trump’s hush-money trial, saying, “The president didn’t want me to tell any jokes about him tonight, but he also didn’t want to pay me $130,000 to shut up, so here we are. Sorry, Mushroom D—k.” After each joke, the show cut to reaction shots of Trump officials laughing or smiling, making the burns feel even sharper.
This isn’t the first time the WHCD has shied away from comedy. Last year, it fired comedian Amber Ruffin after she called Trump officials “kind of a bunch of murderers”. Eugene Daniels, then WHCA president, announced Ruffin’s firing and said the group wanted to avoid “the politics of division.” Daniels later left his White House reporting job to become an MS NOW anchor. The decision to hire a mentalist over a comedian this year feels like another step in that same direction.
Kimmel’s roast was a throwback to the dinner’s golden age of comedy. The most brutal WHCD roast Trump ever endured came in 2011, when he attended as a guest. Both Barack Obama and headliner Seth Meyers tore into him, with Trump sitting in the audience looking visibly uncomfortable. Meyers famously said, “Donald Trump said that he was running for president as a Republican. That’s funny, because I thought he was running as a joke.”
Obama piled on, mocking Trump’s obsession with his birth certificate. “No one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald,” Obama said. “And that’s because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter: like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?”
Trump’s history with the dinner is complicated
He skipped the event entirely during his first term, breaking a long-standing tradition. This year’s appearance marks his first time attending as president, but the WHCA’s decision to skip a comedian suggests they’re still walking on eggshells. Kimmel called out the move in his monologue, framing it as a cop-out. “Our president is a trembling drama queen,” he said, “and that means there’s going to be no comedian this year.”
Back in March, Kimmel joked about hosting the dinner himself after learning Trump would attend. During his opening monologue, he pointed out that past dinners had been hosted by comedians like Al Franken, Ray Romano, Seth Meyers, Jon Stewart, Conan O’Brien, Wanda Sykes, and even himself in 2012. This year’s choice of a mentalist over a comedian struck him as odd. “We’ll have a mentalist and a mental case onstage together,” he quipped.
While he acknowledged Pearlman was an “amazing performer,” he called the decision not to hire a comedian a “cop-out.” Kimmel even made a direct appeal to Trump, joking, “Mr. President, please let me host this dinner. I’ve never asked you for anything, but can you imagine you, me, the commissioner of the FCC, all at a table together? Think of the ratings!”
The comment was a nod to the ongoing tension between Kimmel and FCC commissioner Brendan Carr, who had previously threatened Disney over Kimmel’s controversial remarks about Charlie Kirk. Disney briefly suspended Kimmel’s show for about a week last year, though the FCC wasn’t directly involved in that decision.
The WHCD’s decision to avoid comedy this year isn’t just about Trump
It’s part of a larger shift away from the event’s traditional edge. Last year’s firing of Amber Ruffin set the tone, with the WHCA explicitly stating they wanted to move away from “the politics of division.” But Kimmel’s roast proves that comedy doesn’t have to be divisive — it can just be funny. And if the WHCA won’t provide the laughs, Kimmel is more than happy to step in.
For viewers who remember the dinner’s heyday, Kimmel’s monologue was a welcome return to form. The WHCD has always been a place where the president gets roasted, and the absence of that tradition this year feels like a missed opportunity. Kimmel’s nine-minute roast reminded everyone what they’ve been missing.
(Featured image: Erin Scott)
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