Transcripts For CSPAN Correspondent Dinner 20130427 : vimars

there are several pre-parties held at the washington hilton. people crowd the hallways and go to the various conference rooms. they celebrity watch. tonight at 10:15 p.m., the president and conan o brien will begin their remarks. let s what the red carpet. anna wintour has already arrived. the governor chris christopher is expected to arrive. here is the red carpet live on c-span. [indiscernible crowd conversation] what is your favor part of the show? is very smart. i like that. thank you very much. [indiscernible crowd conversations] [ahead indiscernible crowd conversations] [indiscernible] eric holder. msnbc. [indiscernible crowd conversations] msnbc! question. julia! julia. ms nbc. can we get quick uick msnbc. one question. [indiscernible conversation] [indiscernible conversation] hysterically they were wrong historically they were wrong. the fbi wanted to question them. thank you. thank you. the president has got to be light and happy. reporters: natalie! reporters: savannah! msnbc. reporters: savannah! reporters: al! msnbc. cnn. love y all. doing?ll like that guyas and that guy. playing in background] i love cnn. ap.e are oh! i love ap. should be nice. ap. how are you? i used to live in washington. >reporters: sophia! sophia! reporters: psy! psy! one question. msnbc. how are you? inc. they are nerds think they are nerds. i love this event. it is so weird. .c. hollywood dudes and the dc dudes comingle. i really enjoy it. i was like really, what is that? they were like, you did not know? i was like, yeah. reporters: tracy! msnbc. will you be telling jokes? no. i will just enjoy it. how difficult is it to tell a joke in front of all of these people? i do not care what crowd i am in front of. i do not judge the audience. i just enjoy it. looking forward to seeing it. thank you. love your movie. thank you. you are watching live coverage of the arrival, the red carpet arrival at the white house correspondents dinner 2013. this is washington hilton hotel. we will be live for the next several hours and remarks from the president and conan o brien as all. another party is going on a couple of blocks the washington hilton. this is a couple of blocks from the washington hilton. this is the buzz feed hardy. party. buzz feed was unable to get a table at the white house correspondents dinner. the dinner is so in demand they had to turn away some people. feed didreason, buzz not get a table. they are hosting its own table party. nothing is quite happening. the dress is a little bit effort. the atmosphere is more relaxed. we will be live throughout the evening. we will show a little bit of that once he gets going. on the eastrn time coast. dinner will be served at 8:20 p.m. or so. then remarks themselves. the president and conan o brien will begin remarks. if you would like to participate, you can follow #nerdprom.itter just like the real prom, i will be sitting at home watching c-span. jessica says when white house correspondents dinner has a red carpet, i think we can all jumped off theas charts of its own self- importance and delusion. let s go back to the arrivals. that looks like hayden from nashville. connie britton arrived earlier. good evening. you are beautiful by the way. you are beautiful. are you excited to see anyone? i m excited to see everyone. many people i am working with have worked hard on aids. children areere concerned. [indiscernible conversation] i do not know how those two go together. as a world we have experienced tragedy. reporters: olivia! olivia! reporters: eric! can we ask you a few questions? of course. how excited are you? it is exciting. should be amazing. is this like work for you? of course it is work. doesn t look like i am having fun? [laughter] it is fantastic. good evening will be funnier? conan o brien or the president? think will be funnier? conan o brien or the president? [inaudible] [indiscernible conversation] it has slowed down a little bit on the red carpet. many are getting ready for the white house correspondents dinner. senator mccaskill is at the dinner. here is a tweet wondering if husband will pay any attention to me on our anniversary since sitting with olivia munn and nicole kidman. you re watching live coverage on c-span. you re watching c-span s live coverage of the 2013 white house correspondents dinner. here are some of the guests. you have to be able to be a journalist to purchase a ticket. thomson reuters citigroup , secmorgan stanley cfo chairman, actors kathleen turner and fred armisen, actor jeremy renner. victor cruz of the new york giants. mariane pearl. from thethe guests daily beast and newsweek. tom gave an interview a little bit ago. he talked about his view on the dinner. 75 whenmber in 74 or the original cast of saturday night live did it. it was a big hit. it was appropriate. they were doing a lot of political stuff. a kind of raised the profile of the white house correspondents dinner. somewhere along the line it began to free will out of freewheel out of control. it took it to a different level. it became more of a tabloid kind of dinner. i watched. i was kind of embarrassed by the end of the evening. people were drinking way too much. ica withcan i take my you and can i get your autograph? picture with you and can i get your autograph? i would watch it on c-span. view to take it from the of an interested person in that is thesaying, washington press corps? there was more dignity at my daughter s junior prom than what i am seeing on c-span. the breaking point was lindsay lohan. give me a break. talkingwas tom brokaw ar with politico a week or two back. that is his view about tonight to dinner. the washington hilton hotel have pretty much stopped. the dinner begins in about an hour and 20 minutes. has tweeted helicopters swirling over dupont. obama must be on his way. it is not just the dinner anymore. it has become part of the washington tradition. this dinner is nearly 100 years old. in the last five or 10 years or so, lots of parties have grown round is dinner. .ne of those is a lunch she has been hosting this brunch for several years. in s kind of become an thing to go to. we brought over our cameras this morning. it was held in georgetown. here is a little bit from the brunch. how are you? how are you doing? hi. how are you? ?> how are you dc ban.c. i was told last night by a lot of people and government t [inaudible] hey. what s up? sure. how are you doing? a pleasure. everyone is watching c-span. everyone is watching c-span. say everyone we are talking single figures. [laughter] irish. say hi. good to see you. how are you doing? hi. how are you? daughter?your thank you. no problem. hi. you?w are nice to meet you. this is my daughter. right here. thank you. thank you. [indiscernible conversation] hi. your husband thinks you are mean. mean.t think you re [laughter] thank you. c-span. span. c- for want to thank her allowing us to raise these issues at this event. thank you for allowing us to impose on you. i promise you when we cure epilepsy, we will not bother you anymore. it is such an important issue. many people died. 3 million people impacted by epilepsy. you willmeone meet someone. captain pat was injured in iraq and had head injury, head trauma and developed epilepsy as a result. he has struggled with it since that time. this is a very common thing. as a country we have to deal with this. as soldiers return and service people return from iraq and the vietnam after war, soldiers with injuries, half of them developed epilepsy. head injuries are the signature injury of the wars in iraq and afghanistan. patty has valiantly dealt with it. is eric cantor. epsy, mr. leader [applause] you have a child with a serious problem, disorders like this are nonpartisan. they affect everyone. is moreon humanity important than any political differences we have. we are very appreciated to have you here today. [applause] thank you very much for what you are doing for so many tens of thousands of people who suffer with epilepsy. if we can just educate one person about the impact of this disease that we consider today i learned about the impacts of serious brain injuries for our veterans and the consequences of posttraumatic epilepsy. david, you are right. we can learn to set aside differences and focus on the kinds of things that humanity is about. it is about helping people and curing disease. thank you for the commitment there. i have the honor to meet catherine and patty. when i was to the captain and patty. when i was talking to the captain, he said it was not abouhim. , he platoon leader sustained a gunshot wound to the head that left him with serious temple temp oral lobe damage. lobe damage. he has challenges of doing the basic things of writing, talking, walking. him and his family are courageously fighting for others with this condition. i am delighted to be here and to present to the captain that cure heroes epilepsy a war award. i m honored to present this to you. cap applause] and can you hear me? it is kind of fun for me. i got hurt in 2007. it took me years to get better. havingst four months of a seizure, i do not know what it was. ptot, my vision and my speech, it is getting better, but every once in a while i would have a seizure. matter a caesar will happen seizure will happen. then hopefully it will be fine. the one thing we are hoping for sorry. a lot of people got messed up and they do not know how to talk about it. i think it has been good. [applause] i must say it is hard to follow heroes that we saw on stage. thank you for coming together. on any given day, washington, d.c. is a remarkable place. we are looking around a room of really accomplished people from the west coast, east coast, middle of america, both sides of the aisle. that is a really beautiful day in washington, dc thank you for being here and for supporting such causes. we get people from both sides to talk to each other and work together on things. that theren pleased has been a spirit of working together to drive innovation and support our nation s entrepreneurs. it is built by the founders and entrepreneurs. there are a lot of people such as air counter and others in the white house and many others here today who have been instrumental in jumpstarting our businesses and working on immigration to make sure we win the battle of talent. thank you for hosting this and putting a spotlight on innovation and entrepreneurship and bipartisanship. thank you. [applause] we have a new cost this year that has become exciting. missany of you know that america foundation is the largest provider of scholarships to young women in the world? i do not know that. we are very excited to welcome the ms. america foundation and ms. america herself. [applause] hello. i will be very brief. what you see before you is a product of what ms. america can do for a young woman. i began this organization when i was 13 years old. , believe it is an intelligent well spoken, well-rounded young woman because of what this organization encourages us to do. they have the opportunity to speak on multiple subjects. the most the one i m most excited about is stem. that to share with kids science, technology, engineering, and math are very important. toave gotten a scholarship complete my education. thank you and i look forward to meeting everyone. there is a president here. ok. everyone stand up and put up your iphones for the president of the united states. [applause] t you. i come from an alternate universe as the leader of the free world. [laughter] to the white house correspondents for all of their hard work. without them, i would not exist. [laughter] interrupting.for we have another president here. we have the president of the white house correspondents association. [applause] .> congratulations i appreciate that. [laughter] real quick. i want to apologize. i ve been stocking every celebrity stalking every celebrity. seriously. the fox family is here. it is appropriate to get an award because this weekend that sort of become like the olympics where it is one event after another and goes on and on. that.gets the gold for .hank you to everyone make a serious point about the weekend. he found time to very quietly make a generous contribution to the white house correspondents association scholarship fund. [applause] thank you, mark. we have an announcement to make. hosts have made a contribution to the white house correspondent fund. we are all about colleges and educating more journalists. don t we need more? [applause] saying thatap by were some comments made about this week and losing its focus a little bit. i think it is to have a brunch and have fun. but i do think we need to remember it is the white house correspondents association dinner. there should be the white house involved and correspondents involved. a lot of media people here making very dramatic contributions. charlie rose is here. others were instrumental in that. political linda coke politico. last year we raised thousands of dollars. this year we have raised that and more. [applause] thank you very much. it is scholarships for needy journalist students. there is a lot of fun this weekend. we are also trying to inspire the next generation of journalists. thank you. that brunch was held earlier today. we are back live on c-span. looking at your tweets as well. here is one from tiffany. tiffany, you have a couple more hours of live coverage at the white house correspondents dinner. that s a live picture of the inside of the ballroom at the washington hilton. the security suite has finished. people are starting to filter and. from is eric stonestreet modern family. people are starting to filter into the ballroom. it gets a little messy. we just saw modern family cast member eric stonestreet, but there are a lot of other guests attending. you have to be part of a media organization to attend, but you can invite guests. and jeffreyberg captain berg of dreamworks. huffington post has governor chris christie along with musician jon bon jovi. george condon is a journalist with the national journal. we talked to him about the history of the dinner. here is what he had to say. how did the white house correspondents dinner evolved? the correspondents association started in 1914 because they were terrified that president wilson was going to have press conferences and he would pick who would come there. they wanted to regain control. that crisis passed. 10 years went before they started the dinner in 1924. it evolved from a very small dinner, only a couple hundred people. members could only bring one , and it had to be a person of high official position. it has changed quite a bit since then. the first dinner was in 1924? yes. presidents always attended the yearly dinners. they were promised, you do not have to give a speech. residents didn t want to give speeches, and they could just enjoy it. it was very much modeled after the gridiron dinner. there were songs between every course, skits. they made a movie that was shown. it went on for hours. when you got into the 30 s and 40 s and this tv developed in the 40 s, cbs and nbc and paramount put out this gala entertainment where they brought the biggest stars. you would have everything from jugglers to musicians to .crobats abbott and costello, bob hope, jimmy cagney, barbra streisand. one of her first performances was at this dinner in 1963 for kennedy. where was it held prior to the building of the washington hilton? i don t i think the willard. i don t member remember. the willard was one of the prime ones. andhe gala we see today, some may say it is over the top with the celebrities this is nothing new? no, there ve always been a lot of celebrities. they were the entertainment 500 it didn t hit people going until 1934. it did not hit a thousand until eisenhower was president. it was not until kennedy that it hit 1500. .ow it is a 2600, and a sellout ever since 1993 it is been a sellout. back live to the washington ballroom. were going to watch the room camerasand just let the roll and let you watch that. or dinner will begin at 8:20 so. at about 10:15 is when the president is due to start his remarks. and then conan o brien at about 10:40 or so. it should be all over by 11:10 p.m. eastern time. this is a live event. it may push. .ust enjoy the evening let s watch the ballroom of the health and fill up a little bit. .- hilton fill up a little bit [indistinct conversations] tions]tinct conversaetion this is the inside of the washington hilton ballroom. the president is due to enter the ballroom in about 15 minutes. at 8:00 p.m. eastern time he will be entering the ballroom. where going to continue to watch this and monitor the tweets that are coming in. , i love listening to the c-span anchors say the names of pop stars and mess them up. i think we have a great track record tonight. tonight we re hitting about 100%. let s go back to the room and watch the guests filter in. [indistinct conversations] [indistinct conversations] live coverage of the 2013 white house correspondents dinner. eric cantor, republican of virginia, was just on screen. you saw the security man standing in front. even the security is wearing texas this evening. tuxes this evening. you have to be a media allowed ton to be buy tickets to the white house correspondents dinner, but you can invite guests. politicians can only be invited via a media organization. the wall street journal has invited house gop majority leader eric cantor. some of their guests. if you want to send a tweet. .nerd prom you can follow along. , looks like the ladies attending have done their own hair and makeup. nice to see. the president will be entering the room in about nine minutes or so. we will continue our live coverage throughout the evening. ,he toasts begin at about 10:00 a little after 10:00. then the president speaks. 10:15 or so is the set time for that. and then 10:40 eastern time is when conan o brien makes his remarks, and that closes up the ceremony tonight. amyou go to www.c-span.org a we have all the past enters we have all the past dinners and speakers. white live at the 2013 house correspondents dinner. let s go back to the room. ]indistinct conversations [indistinct conversations] live coverage from the washington hilton. alyssa thinks, watching all the people stresses her out. it does get a little crowded in , 27 hundred people. journalists and their guests are all there. the head table should be coming into the room into her three minutes or so. or so.or three minutes back to live coverage of the room. [indistinct conversations] you can see how crowded the ballroom is at the washington hilton. this is the hallway inside the washington hilton. you can see what it is like to be in that crowd. it is very, very tight and small and the hallways are a little bit small. the hotel was built in the 1960 s and 1970 s, so it not build for what it is taking place there. but it is kind of fun. president obama and conan o brien are going to begin their remark tonight at 10:15 this ovening. we ll show you the toast and we re waiting for the president and the head table. they were due to come in at about 8:00. let s continue to watch everybody get seated. there is gail king from the cbs morning show looking for her seat. live coverage on c-span of the white house correspondents dinner at the washington hilton. you re watching the ballroom fill up with journalists and their guests. we re still waiting on the head table, which is nine minutes late. the all the gentleman is the bureau chief of fox news. you saw conan o brien who is the featured comedian this evening up with the marine band. any minute now the head table should be filing in and the president and mrs. obama will be the head table along with conan o brien along with jay carney and the board of the white house association. ril ryan, steve of the the apers, the times and tibebune papers and others will be seated at the head table. more tweets coming in. for something called nerd prom you think they would be anal about starting on time. k.p. gordon says it is too crowded in that ballroom. have no idea how they do security for an event like this. bill o reilly holding court nonstop. we will continue to watch the om and read your tweets at #nerdprom, we re waiting for the head table to be seated. . ladies and gentlemen, please welcome ed henry the president f the white house association. ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the president of the united states of america, barack bama and first lady michelle obama. [applause] [applause] ladies and gentlemen, please . and for the presentation [playing the star-spangled anner] [applause] of lease welcome army chief staff. [applause] thank you, everybody. if everybody could please sit down, i would appreciate it. thank you. so if i could have everybody s attention for just a minute. this is a great evening here in washington, d.c. and i want to take a minute to talk about those great men and women who you just saw in front of you who represent all of our armed forces. [applause] they represent over two million men and women, soldier, sailors, army, marine, coast guardmen who serve our country so we can have nights like tonight and the opportunity to enjoy our freedom and leb byty of this great country. as we sit here this evening, there s hundreds of thousands of men and women around the world serving our country to ensure hat we maintain ourl security. [applause] we re about ready now to hear the great marine corp. band who will play the armed forces medley. i ask each and every one of you to listen and if you currently your or have served or if ther or father has served or please stand for those who have served throughout the great history of this country. [applause] with that, i turn it over to our great marine corp. band. thank you very much. [applause] good evening, even welcome to the e! first of all, welcome. welcome to if white house correspondents dinner. i want to permally thank the general because we decided to add that to the program to get eople to listen and pay ohmage to people who have served and you did. we thank you, general. [applause] finally, for now we decided to get 2,700 of our closest friends together for a little dinner. we welcome you. we want you to enjoy your dinner. we have a great program for you but for now, enjoy your dinner and we ll see you in a little while. bloomberg news, carol lee the wall street journey jay carney press secretary to the . esident, ed henry fox news , the tribune newspaper. so now you can enjoy your dinner. thank you. as you heard announced dinner s about to be served here at the white house corps spon departments dinner. a lot of tweets commenting on michelle obama s appearance. stunning is the most common word used. here s a couple of words i don t understand. they will begin with a salad with crab meat. that s the salad. peared e is a filet ith poached halibet with whipped potatoes, seasonal baby egetables. finally, dessert is a lord baltimore cake, yellow cake with almonds, cherries, encased in a fluffy mar regulate. maybe that is the recipe. that is the men knew that everyone will be eating tonight. tickets are over $200. they are all paid for by the media organizations. a table is like something in that ballpark. that is what is for dinner tonight. they are beginning on the terrain salad. , just a day or so ago, it was announced that mark leaguer which who is the head political writer for the new york times is writing a new book. it will come out in july and is called this town. is an insiders look into the relationships in washington and how those relationships can affect politics. we talked with him about his book and about the inside relationships in washington. as the salad is served, we want to show you this interview. markle mark leaguer bitch how close is the press? it is pretty closely aligned. is all thethings presidents men, it has become more of a celebrity clash than in other cities which is an odd thing. it is a self congratulations and self celebration and so forth that can the somewhat at odds with the rest of the country and how people view the media and so forth. it is all very unique to the culture. i think many people would think it is odd that we have two dozen parties to celebrate the efforts of the washington media every single weekend when a lot of people are not happy with the performance of washington or the media. the new york times does not attend the correspondents dinner anymore. why is that? 2007 decidedround that it felt too cozy. itfelt not too festive, did not seem like the right message to be sending. it chummy and festival is a view that several, not everyone. we will not pass judgment on those who do go. when i did used to go and i worked with another newspaper. i would get a lot of work done. that has been papers philosophy for a number of years. i do not see it changing at least this year. you mentioned there are a lot of other parties he cites the dinner is lf, will you attend i do notest seem to be on the guest list. a couple.go to depending on how tired i am on or ifay, i am still awake i have any energy at all i might wander out and go to an after party. it must be a product of age. i do not seem to go to as many as i used to. your book comes out in july called this town. white house correspondent dinner makes an appearance in your book? it is this weekend that happens every year. absolutely. it is a world that we have here that is a bubble world. especially the term gilded capital, this is a very economical thriving areas of the country. if you look at washed in d.c. a, it issurrounding arweee the wealthiest where the u.s. has lacked. a lot of people see in washington and also frankly xoma friendly, it is the odds with the partying and the level of celebration of just everyone congratulating each 72 hour period when the rest of the country did not share enthusiasm. politico wrote about your book this past week and called it a washington takedown. what kind of response are you getting? is garnering a lot of attention? it just post it last night. i wrote about it is morning. i have gotten a lot of e-mails. my view is what ever. it is hard to write about a book that no one has read. basically, they talk about people who i was talking to trying to discern from whatever scraps and they could pick up what would be of value, who could be the subject. look, i am happy for anyone s interest. it is a luxury to have. unfortunately, no one has read the book and i look forward to people reading the book and talking about it once people have digested it. mark, why is it an important topic for you to write about? politico time did on the east of the correspondents dinner. people mightuse think they know what goes on in washington. there are a number of short- handed answers for why washed and does not work, it is not a bipartisan enough. cinematice real version in the real reasoning behind why washington or how washington works today is very different from how people see it. it is a carnival. it has more in common with with old than it does georgetown dinner parties that we used to hear so much about. it is a very modern phenomenon of money and celebrity and new media and some the other things there are obviously unique. it is concentrated in this mark, thank you for talking with us. that was mark leibovich the relationships in washington between politicians and etc. etc.. theere surely some of arrivals earlier. you saw bob shiver with claire danes. she is a guest of cbs news. lots more tweaks are coming in. is there anything more pathetic than seeing people sitting down upon it our? tweaks are palling up. all they are doing is eating ber chicken and been says ben says, how bad is my saturday night was mark another person said this is the highlight of my saturday. servers are working their tails off, how about a big what what for the hard-working folks? as we watch everybody getting seated and eating, we will let you know that the president and conan o brien will begin about with their actual remarks. there will be some toasts. the president will begin speaking at 10:15 eastern, that is the schedule. that time could be changed. at theo back to the room boston hilton. a few blocks from the washington hilton is a place called the there is jack rose. he is in adams morgan where a another party is being held. here s a little bit about that party. how are you guys? at the are you? same time as the white house correspondents dinner, another party is happening. t by buzz feed. what is buzzfeed? we produce breaking news and entertainment for people who live on twitter. what is the washington coverage element of that? it is about half a dozen we try to do smarter reporting. come to havezzfeed its own party? we had been covering the correspondents dinner previously. have many times. for some reason, we had lots of people as well. we decided to have our own. an explanation for why you were not given a table? to go into want private conversation that i heard secondhand. for those who do not live in that washington world, why is it significant to get a table at the dinner and why is it important for you to have your own dinner? was did not say it significant or important. let s not get carried away. .t is a great place we hope to be there. .e have a great correspondent ofis also the whole thing parties. [inaudible] how do you respond to criticism of that relationship between the present mingling with the d.c. officials? it is a getting attention. what is your response? i would rather i have no problem with officials giving us information. they wereould be if having a party for us. that seems more problematic. there has always been this cozy culture in washington where people are afraid and that not a problem. that is not a problem that buzzfeed has. how do social media and the online culture come to play this weekend for smart or will seeing reports on buzzfeed about that partying element? it is. it is pretty boring. it is not news. , we a reporting standpoint see opportunities. things that actually matter. watching it and loving it or reallyit it is not visible to everything else. toyou were one of the first really give political folly blocking. how have you seen online news evolve? it has always been a mixture of decision-making and silly rumor and gossip and politics. it is always intertwined. important decisions and up being made. you have to understand how the place works. smith is the editor-in- chief of buzzfeed. he is having his same event as the white house correspondents dinner. thank you. about thes ben smith alternative party being held. just a couple of blocks from the washington hilton. the ballroom. you see michelle obama chatting with michael and conan o brien sitting in the middle. lots of tweets coming into #nerdprom. one person said the only thing nerdier is watching it streaming. you can watch it on c-span s website. you can watch all of past correspondent dinners on our website as well. conan o brien first spoke at the dinner in 1995. resident clinton was president. he is not returning. jay leno has done it a couple of times. and conanobama o brien will begin their talks at about 10:15 eastern. east about 8:45 on the coast. it is another hour or so. we have some other things to show you. as we show you all the guests at the dinner eat as well, let s go back to the room. live coverage of the 2013 white house correspondents dinner continues at this evening on c-span. a couple more hours of coverage to go as they eat their dinner. i wanted to read a few more tweaks. eets/ did not get their dinner so they threw their own dinner. get their own tables so they threw their own dinner. jack said #nerdprom is entertaining, but the relationship between them rest and government officials should be confrontational. of thepulled with john national journal about their relationship a wild back. what about the idea of the press and washington? i have no problem at all with that. the idea that somehow we are supposed to be hostile and enemies with the people we cover is sitting silly. it did go it goes against history. we have an adversarial relationship. the fact that we have dinner with a new source or official s not mean in any way modify that relationship. we will still be going at it the next day. it is not bad. when did the dinner stop being stacked? stag? women were four members. they paid their dues. when the dinner came home a they cannot come. that was true the first year of the kennedy administration. helen was not a big deal. she was a little-known reporter who covered the first lady. she went to mr. salinger and said this is wrong. you should tell the president. mr. salinger went to the president and he said that is wrong. you tell them i am not going to the dinner next year in 1962 unless women are admitted. one atftly definitely the present. helen ended up being the first woman president of the association. we are back live with the 2013 white house correspondents dinner at the hilton. you can see the ballroom there. they are working their way through dinner at this point. the entrée is world petite with béarnaise sauce with polish hell poachednd chutney halibut and chutney. atots of tweets coming #nerdprom. one woman said her car was behind the president. she said that is the closest she will get. it is the largest ballroom. ,t about 10:15 this evening the president will begin his remarks. there will be scholarships prior to that. the association always gives out scholarships. to a lot of students, 100,000 of dollars. he is a new york times photographer and a member of the correspondent association. another boardto member. they are seated at the head table. they give out lots of scholarships. in fact, one of the scholarships being awarded is to a woman who attends howard university. she works part-time. she works on the morning show the washington journal. she is a junior at howard. .er name is charmaine she got a scholarship. congratulations to charmaine. let s get back to the room and we await the program to start. . i live coverage, there is the head table. the president and mrs. obama, and seated between them is an executive at fox news. mrs. obama is chatting with right now, you can see the president talking with ed henry, the white house correspondent for fox news, previously cnn, longtime viewers of the washington journal remember that for years ed henry did ourressional updates on morning program. that is the head table at the white house correspondents dinner. continued live coverage on c- span of the white house correspondent s dinner at the hilton hotel in dupont circle. this may be 7-8 blocks from the white house, just north of dupont circle which is about 21st street in washington. the white house is in the 1600 block. ,his is a tweet from g tweeting, dear people of washington, please eat a little faster. it is 1:59 a.m. in the uk and i just want to hear the speeches. ,ome of the guests attending mayor bloomberg, barbra streisand and kevin spacey. asaw kevin spacey earlier, lot of you criticizing c-span for not getting barbra streisand on camera. my guess is, we would have shown her if we had found her by now. i don t know if she s actually there. i think she is. michael j fox as a guest of nbc, along with michael douglas and matthew perry of friends. some of you have tweeted about matthew perry. cnn has actor gerard butler, paul rudd and elizabeth banks as some of their guest. the president and conan o brien will begin speaking at 10:15 p.m. eastern time or so. we will be live with that, of course. it should all wrap up about 11:10 p.m. eastern time. so g in the u.k., a little while to go before the evening is complete. and we are continuing live coverage. having a chat there at the white house correspondent s dinner. there are five after parties after this, including a brunch tomorrow. there are five or so pre- parties, some held at the white house the washington hilton, and one that has become rather standard party, one that people want to get invited to, is the brunch thrown by tammy had god haddad. former msnbc executives. it was in georgetown this morning. we will show you a little bit of this brunch. are you? did they give you everything you wanted jack of wanted? i think we take a lot of liberties. i was told must i buy a lot of different people, they discuss homeland and are amazed at how accurate it is. [indiscernible] [inaudible] rex this is c-span. everyone is watching c-span. [laughter] is that c-span? when you say everyone is watching c-span, we are talking about single figures. [inaudible] first of all, i want to thank tammy for allowing us to rai event. thank you, year after year for allowing us to impose on you. when we cure epilepsy, we won t bother you about this anymore. but it is such an important issue. 50,000 people a year die, epepsy.ple impted today you are going to meet ofeone who is another face this dreadful disorder. an w waspat injury,raq, head head trauma and developed epilepsy as a result of that area and has struggled with it since that time. this is a very common thing. we as a country are going to have to deal with this as soldiers return, service people return from iraq and afghanistan. soldiers vietnam war, with penetrating brain injuries, half of them developed epilepsy within a seven year. seven year period. this is going to be a big problem moving forward. havend his wife patty valiantly dealt with it and we want to recognize them today. here to join us, we are so please that he is, is the majority leader of the house of representatives representatives, eric cantor. let me just say, mr. leader. [applause] a child, when you have as we did, with a very serious problem, what you learned very quickly is that disease, disorders like this are nonpartisan. they affect emma kratz, independent, and republicans. common humanity is more important than any differce we have. theeas be speaking t of late about the need for more research to deal with some of these issues. we are appreciative of that and to have you here today. [applause] david and susan, thank you very much for what you are doing for so many tens of thousands of people who suffer epilepsy i was talking to susan earlier, i think you said to me, if we can just educate one person about the impact of this disease, we would consider today a success. i can tell you, i really just learned about the impact of serious brain injury for our veterans and the consequences of posttraumatic epilepsy. vid, you are right. we can learn to set e and focus on the kinds of things that humanity is , curingelping people disease. i just want to thank you very much for the commitment there. i have also had the honor to horan and his wife, patty. when i was talking to the captain, he said it really wasn t about him, that he went to iraq and in 2007, as the platoon leader for bravo , sustained a gunshot wound to the head that left him with various temporal lobe damage. because of that, had some serious challenges, therapy, just trying to do the very basic things ofng reading, talking thery courageous way, both captain and his wife are now courageously fighting for others with this condition. i am delighted to be here and delighted to present to captain horan the epilepsy heroes award. it is my honor to present this to you. [applause] to ce bynd get to see it is kind of fun for me. and it tookn 2007 me years to get better. from whenfour months i had my first seizure, i didn t know what that was. anyway, i continued to pt, ot, my vision and my speech, i was happy it was getting better. every once in a while, i would have a seizure and pretty much be really slow for a month to get better. aeizuret matter, is g i t quit because it is going to happen. then, hopefully it will be fine. is one thing i would like for more people sorry. from the war. a lot of people got messed up and don t know how to talk about it or talk with each other. i guess i am not smart enough, i will talk to whoever. [laughter] i think it has been good. [applause] i must say, it is hard to follow heroes that we just saw on stage. we are humbled to be here. thank you, everyone for coming together. on any given day, washington, dc is a remarkable place, but we feel it is more remarkable today. we are looking around the room of really accomplished people from the west coast, the east ast, from both sides of the aisle. for us, that is a beautiful day in washington d.c. a lot of us would like to see even more of that. thank you for being here and thank you for supporting such great causes. i just want to add that we think it is a great opportunity for a week and like this, not just to have great parties and meet interesting people, but get people, republicans and democrats to talk to each other, work together on things. in the past year, we have been rticular pshington, there has ba spirit of rking together to drive innovation, support our nation s entrepreneurs. it s worth remembering that our nation was was not just felt by the patriots, but the entrepreneurs who built the american economy. doubling down on entrepreneurs is important. here today who have been instrumental in the past year, passing the jumpstarting our startups act. thank you hillary and tammy for hosting this and putting a spotlight on innovation and we have an because this year that has become very exciting. o you you know that ms. america foundation is actually the largest provider of scholarships to young women in the world? how many knew that? i didn t know that. we are very excited to welcome the miss america foundation and mallory hagan,is[ae] hello. you ast here to tell little bit about the miss america organization, i will be very brief. what you see before you is a product of what miss america can do for a young woman. i begin this organization when i was 13 years old. believem a 24, what i is an intelligent, well spoken, well-rounded young woman because of the things this organization encourages us to do. this year as miss america i have the opportunity to speak on multiple subjects, the ones i am most excited about is stem. got the opportunity to go to the comments here in d.c. and the opportunity to share with students that science technology engineering and math are incredibly important. i will go back and complete my education next year. i think to offer your support here? is a president. go , ladiesp your iphones and gentlemen the president of the united states. [applause] thank you, from my alternate universe as the leader of the free world to say congratulations and thanks to the white house correspondents for all of their extraordinary work. without them, i certainly wouldn t exist. , we haveesident another president here with us, forgive me for interrupting. we have with us, ed henry, the president of the white house reondent association. [applause] here you are, congratulations and thanks. thank you very much. real quick, first and want to apologize, my parents are here and been stocking every celebrity. stalking every celebrity. they are here, the fox family is here. it is appropriate to get an award because this weekend is sort of become the olympics where is one event after another, on and on. y gets the gold for that. she just reminded me of that, obviously. , everybodyo hillary appear, ted. i did want to thank mark because i want to make a serious point about the weekend. , in betweenuietly winning championships, making billions of dollars, he found time to quietly make a generous contribution to e house or spawned and cessation scholarship fund. associationdence scholarship fund. [applause] heiko brunt cohosts also made a contribution to the white house respondent fund. we are all about educating more journalists. don t we need more journalists see ech? [applause] last year, tom brokaw made some comments about this week and losing focus a little bit. it is great to have a brunch, great to have fun. i do think we need to remember the white house respondent association dinner. there shouldember, be somewhat has involved, some correspondents involved. there are a lot of media people here who made dramatic contributions. , david rose this year rose, others who were instrumental in that. i wa to name everyone, because i will forget somebody. the point is, last year we raised about $130,000 for scholarships. this year, we have raised another $150,000 over that are. so thank you very much. scholarships for needy journalism students who would not be able to get into journalism without our help. a lot of fun this weekend but also trying to inspire the next generation of journalists. thank you for doing this. that was the brunch held earlier today in georgetown. it has become pretty standard for that brunch since it got bigger and bigger over the last five or so years. we are back live at the washington hilton hotel, white house correspondent s dinner. the program is due to begin in about 10 minutes or so. we think they will push just a little bit. as you can see, a lot of people finished eating and are around and mingling. nerdprom is the twitter handle being used all evening. one invented by c- span. i am not sure where that actually came from. i am sure one of our viewers will tell us where that came from. it has been around for a couple of years now. it is the one that everybody seems to tweet at. we decided to use it to hear from you as well. , i amarie tweets in that catching up on the rachel maddow show. she bartend the nerd prom after party. can you find out if that is true? that is true. msnbc will do an after at some location in washington. rachel maddow will be bartending at that party. canjcat tweets in i am anxious to hear how conan o brien addresses the recent boston tragedy at the nerd prom. that will be a tough thie. charles tweets and watching the nerd prom and switching between that and nascar. tweets coming in hot and heavy, every couple of seconds this point. a live picture of the white house correspondent s dinner. here at the washington hilton. on your screen, that right there is bradley cooper the actor. .hatting with him a lot of celebrity washing watching. not many chances to see the politicians, celebrities and journalists all in the same place like you do at this party. a little bit different. a couple of blocks away is another party. the buzz feed barbecue, sponsored by geico. buzzfeed.com, political media it s own party. they did not get tickets to the white house correspondent s dinner. for various reasons. you can see here, they are having an alternate party. an alternative party. a couple of people in taxes it looks like. most people dressed. he casually for saturday night forressed pretty casually saturday night. they must have c-span on the tv, because they now playing to the camera a little bit. there is the buzz feed party. of blocks from the white house correspondent s dinner which is at the washington hilton. which is on connecticut avenue and is probably the biggest night in washington when it comes to social events. nothing else really compares anymore. there is the radio television correspondents association dinner, which is the congressional correspondent. in early summer. it simply just does not compete with this dinner. this dinner brings everybody, ever since don hall back in the 80s was right to the dinner by the late jack kelly of atlantic magazine. that started the celebrity trends that grew and grew to the point now where the celebrities outnumber the journalist s. you cannot buy a ticket unless you are a white house credentialed analysts. table, nbc cana buy a table, etc. stayed york times away from this. they do not buy tables at this dinner. c-span does by a table. steve scully has tax served on the board for several terms. there are some c-span folks there. this is not taxpayer-funded. is the organizations paid for this. $2700 for a table. some organizations will buy five or six tables. there is such a competition for this that i have had to limit at this point. how many people can attend. this is the largest ballroom in washington. that is why it is still held at the washington hilton hotel. the whiteage of house correspondent s dinner. the program should be starting here shortly. there will be some awards given to journalists and scholarships given to students. this is something the white house correspondents association does, is give quite a few thousands of dollars in scholarships. they will be bringing the students up on stage. the students get a chance to meet the president. the president shakes their hands, it helps fund their education. it is quite a bit of money that they get. we just want to point out one of the award winners. that is charmaine, a junior at howard university in washington. c-span on the weekends to help fund her education as well. she helps us with our morning program, washington journal. roots in virginia. give a little shout out, she is a terrific young woman, great student. she helps us out here at c-span. she is getting a little bit of a scholarship from the white house correspondents association. she applied for it and she earned it. continuing live coverage of the white house correspondents dinner. take your seat. literally. incredible. well whoa! whoa! no one has ever doubted i mean what i say, the problem is i sometimes see say all that i mean. i am going to be killed saying something that is not true. literally. y all think i m kidding. i m going to tell him the truth and they will think it is hell. literally. i am not kidding. i mean that sincerely. be careful, microphones are always hot. whoa! let me say this as clearly as i possibly can. i really mean this. literally. . have said repeatedly i got coffee on my shirt here. you re absolutely amazing. thank you very, very very much. please, have a seat. [applause] thank you, mr. vice president. everybody should be treated. we will start the program with an important part of the night was ere we rognize some colleagues who did amazing journalism over the last year. we want to thank the mcneil school of journalism for coordinating the judging of this. i want to call it my friend and colleague, the anchor of fox news s special report, bret bair, to give up the awards. give out the awards. [applause] thank you, ed. mr. president, mrs. obama, distinguished guests from all , it is anl types honor to be here to present the white house correspondents association awards tonight. this week, seeing the five presidents on that stage in dallas was something special. it reminded me what an amazing honor it is to cover whoever is in this office. the following people have been voted by their colleagues for svering this president exceptionally well. the edgar allan co. award honors excellence in news covers and subjects an event of significant national or regional importance, written with fairness and objectivity. ,he 2013 winners are jim morris chris handley, ronnie greene for the center of public integrity. [applause] next up, the merriman smith memorial award. the award for excellence in presidential news coverage under deadline pressure originated in 1970 in memory of merriman smith of united earth international. a correspondent for more than 30 years. the award for 2013 in the print julie pace of two the associated press. [applause] the merriman smith a mortal memorial award in the broadcast category for 2013 goes to terry moran of abc news. [applause] the alba beckmann award recognizes a correspondent who could summarize the journalistic excellence and personal qualities of alba beckmann, the former president of the white house correspondents association and correspondent for the chicago tribune. the award this year goes to ryan liz oh of the new yorker. [applause] thank you all, have a good night. [applause] i m going to need everyone to be quiet because i have some secret video that we shot of the process of what goes into this dinner. out there fight so hard for tickets to this dinner, betterht so hard for table placement. i was stunned at how intense it got. i thought i had seen it all. until a certain congressman is he sitting up here tried to take over this dinner. congressman. we can t have you stockpiling all of these tickets, deciding where everyone gets to sit. i really need you to release some of these tables. you know my motto, you my won ty back to lacerate yours. i have integry. i want cut a dl. i ve seen your work, let s not kid ourselves. this is the part where you leave. what on earth and happened, frank? i was supposed to sit next to him. is for the greater good, valerie. plates of tummy it has anything to do with north korea. please don t tell me it has anything to do with north korea. fiscal cliff, pipelines, education, social security iraq, afghanistan it is not going to happen. if not me, then who? got firedne that from the tonight show , right? over to tbs.ved is that it really work? no, but then he moved to nbc. can we do better than conan? conan is the best we can do. as long as you don t put pelosi at our table. she keeps trying to friend me on facebook. we focus exclusively on and delete audience. that said, we would like kim kardashian at our table. x then i need him to start wearing pants to the white house briefing. just do as i say and politico get the kardashian. and mike, what is your home address? why do you ask? to send you the tickets, of course. summoned to the office. nobody knows where he lives. hisnow his mail paychecks to a po box. there is no reason to be nervous. his salary bad mouthing me to the president? reply hazy. is she out for revenge? ask again later. look you want to talk about immigration? we can talk about immigration. we can talk about the budget. i will even talk to you about jay-z and beyoncé in cuba. there are two things i don t talk about. covert operations and valerie s magical powers. what is the problem you go you to play basketball every tuesday? we don t want the rest of the world to know that. i can break you to update you can tickets to a game. i am all out. how do you think i got elected withip? how about backstage passes? now you re hitting the where and live. you are the coolest whips in town. [beep] netflixmy to work. i have three sources on the west wing saying that valerie is on the warpath. i couldn t possibly comment. it is it true you have been hoarding tickets to the dinner? where are you getting that? tegrity?- you tweeted him i will retweeted. all right. done. i thought you wanted the immigration bill to pass. i did, but you wouldn t give me my ravens tickets. you can t run for mayor again, that will put anthony wiener in a pickle and then he will tweak that pickle. tweet that pickle. what do you suggest? president of the correspondents association. cousin that only last two year gap to doesn t that only last a year? is charlie rose. why did you cancel last week? margaret thatcher died. i was in mourning. how about next week echo double the in touch. be in touch. if i play ball, will you get bloomberg off my back ech? only if you give me your absolute, unquestioning loyalty. that is a pretty big ask. 42 seconds during the dinner to say whatever i want. take 45. washington and hollywood, some new faces, some old faces, some new faces on old faces. , conan. sympathize not just for that backstabbing leno, but having to host. it must be so hard to write jokes about a town that already is one. democrats, republicans, the white house, congress, you walk in together to make this spoof. that is what real bipartisanship looks like. i may lie, cheat, and intimidate to get what i want, but at least i get the job done. i hope some of you will take notes. have a wonderful evening, and i will see all of you at the bloomberg vanity fair party, those of you who got an invite. and mr. president, welcome to nerd prom. [applause] a shout out to kevin spacey who threw me out of his office pro bono. sorry to jay carney who offered to throw me out, he wanted to pay to do that. good evening, mr. president, mrs. obama. my fellow board members. distinguished guests and the folks from msnbc, two. [laughter] welcome to the white house correspondents dinner, or as you heard, the nerd prom. unlike the real prom, most of you were actually able to find a date this time. president and mrs. obama, we thank her for being here again. i got my first lady, surely, my kids, my parents and my sister who actually saw me at the prom and have photographic evidence of my blue tux and mullet to prove it. after last year s dinner, tom greatly admire had some blunt words about the dinner. is that this is an event that separates the press from the people they re supposed to serve. fair criticism. maybe maybe this dinner became a little bit less a celebration of the first amendment than the 21st amendment. of course, it should not be like that. it should not be a focus on what the ultimate serving, but who we are serving tomorrow. we should be serving the public and the next generation of journalists. that is coming off at a lot about since becoming president. to be fair, i did not have a lot of time. for people who know what it is like to have this much power, for just about a year, other than conan. [laughter] we didn t just talk about change, we took action. starting monday decided to trademark our name. that was helpful in some and used the name to start some of the gifting suite. we it down the street because that might be the norm at an oscars party, but our dinner has to be about scholarships, not swag. 100thear will be the year of the correspondents association. a lot of history. if you have any momento zadar, photos of previous dinners, i want you to contact the vice president. [laughter] [applause] [applause] you can go to our website, there is a place to submit those. , startwant tickets calling him, he will be president next year. over the last year, and a lot of people say, what do you guys do? i will run through three priorities we have. the first, we stand up for ss. mr. president, i know that you know i have been agitating for more access to your white house. i want to let you know, i am an equal opportunity educator. last summer, the romney campaign agreed to our request but would not open the fundraisers to the press. the president s fundraisers were largely open so we demanded the same of romney. we kept pushing, they kept say no. in late september i got an e- mail from the romney camp saying, starting tomorrow, cameras will be allowed at all the governors fundraisers. i said, wow, i really made an impact. if you minutes later, someone came up to me, did you hear about this hidden camera in a romney fundraiser? [laughter] it is a game changer. i realized, that is why the romney folks wanted to open their fundraisers. they wanted to look more transparent. the point to me is that elected officials in both parties want more access when more access is in their interest. it is our duty to push for more access all the time, whether it is democrat or republican in power, because it is in the public interest. [applause] it is also easier to get that information that way instead of having to bug senator mcconnell s office. [laughter] the second thing we do is stand up for our members. earlier this year, several of our journalists became new moms. we had a hard time finding a place to pump rest no caps white house. the pressroom has bathrooms that are pretty disgusting. this is not just moral, it is legal. the president health care law, you might ve heard of obamacare, [applause] it mandates that employers with more than 50 workers provide a private space for mothers. there were more than 50 journey journalist in the white house press corps. the white house is not our employer. we are not on their payroll. at least, some of us are not. [laughter] our employers cannot build a private room for our employees there. we have to find existing workspace to take over. something nobody wants to give up erie it i became an activist, or rather a lacktivist. [laughter] for folks like christi parsons, , carol, the new moms. we found a private booth shared by the christian broadcasting network and the canadian broadcasting company. they agreed to let us use it. [applause] , we brokeed out through a glass ceiling. only to find this booth had a glass door. [laughter] you could see right in. this is the only time as president that i decided we needed the white house to be less transparent. [laughter] we need to put a curtain. we could not have done it without your press aide, who is actually about five days overdue with a baby. we are waiting, hoping to break the news tonight. if you out there, e-mail us. [applause] i don t think she had a conflict of interest or anything like that. but she worked very hard on this. and so did someone in the office of administration named stephen pearson. , and ietting impatient asked stephen, he said in a couple more days. i said, why is it taking so long? we just need a curtain to hang in there. he said, because my wife is sowing the curtain herself. thank you, melanie pearson for selling the curtain that now hangs in what we call the breast wing. [laughter] [applause] and, i want you to know we made history in another way. below really should take out of this. we made history in another way. that brings me to the final point. we stand up for the next generation. a scholarship as in one scholarship for a needy journalism student. record assessors have done an amazing job. they have given out more than a dozen scholarships. previous successors have done an amazing job. they have given out more than a dozen scholarships. it is very helpful to us. [applause] since last year s dinner, we have set out to do even more. michael has run our scholarship committee and has done a great job. [applause] we held an event with the discovery channel about watergate and how would change the relationship each in the white house and the press corps. we raised money for our scholarship fund. a town hall meeting on diversity in media at howard university. the discussion that was moderated by a legend. [applause] we did something else. we are offering an internship of the with members correspondence we can get them out of the classroom and into the work pace. we would not have been able to make that happen without colleagues at fox. [applause] our chairman who does a lot of work in this area. .ut also bill o reilly our lunch in dockers and no entourage. talked to the students. that is all they did for an hour. they talked to the students. [applause] the students were a little freaked out, but it was cool. [laughter] scott wilson at the washington post. my friend at politico. we appreciate all of the folks out there. i will wrap up by saying that leaders at other tv networks stepped in without hesitation. this one really got me. cnn. there was this chopping motion and he said, done. this is the first time in a long time someone was happy to hear him say, done. [laughter] there is a lot of generosity in this room. cbs. nbc. abc. bloomberg tv. and the cast of house of cards . thank you. this is the one that really got me. a comedianwe give $10,000. that is small change for a hollywood star. a lot of money to students. for the first time ever, a comedian has refused to cash that check and handed it back to me to use for scholarship funds. [applause] i will close by saying let me paraphrase a fox news motto. you decide if it is worthy of more support. last year we have them out there. we do not have any sent in. i know there is a lot of people out there with money. if you re in a position to give as much as others have given, go for it. something smaller is fine as well. thank you. [applause] arent to end where i began talking about people in this room. we will once again put about $105,000 are so into next year s scholars, but on top of that, we will have raised money. we have doubled that. maybe more soon. let s talk about the real celebrities in this room. the first group of vips and want ,o mention i want to mention the producers, reporters, cameramen and women, please stand up so we can recognize you. [applause] now you know why mrs. obama has come up. every year for the last few years and this year. others toked several come up to the podium to speak about the second group of vips, the real celebrities that i want you to stand up for, and that is this year s scholars. [applause] who knew that ed henry has jokes? kevin spacey, i love you. but the reason why we are here is conan o brien funny? yes. abd?e first lady a beauty? yes. , but alsoleagues competitors in this room. there are a lot of people waiting in the wings that want to take our jobs. [laughter] before the started, i went backstage to talk to them. i would like to introduce you to the real vips in this room by starting at howard university student. she admires you, bill o reilly. on out. come [applause] her highlight was getting a picture with the first lady and the president of the united states. another says she admires you, anna wintour. she says, she is so beautiful. come on out. [applause] ashley told me she loves anyone because she loves documentaries. [applause] another loves anything local news. both of us who know local news, that is a good choice. us who know local news, that is a good choice. [applause] omar. .niversity columbia missouri [applause] chin is a big fan of maria another loves all things 60 minutes. psy is sitting next to charlie rose. we asked him what he wanted and he says he wants a row file on 60 minutes. 60 minutes. loves conan o brien. kipp says his favorite anchor person is just daniels from newsroom. [laughter] ok, kipp. come on out. alexandra had the best answer. i asked everybody who the admired and what shows they watched. thought for a couple minutes and said, no one really. i want to chart my own course. course.hat own come on out. [applause] a special shout out to paul judd. you ll know know what it means. from northwestern, come on out. from the university of california, berkeley, angela. she was very excited backstage. and last but not the least, ingram. simpsonhe loves cynee of channel 7. come on out. a final round of applause for all the scholarship winners. [applause] while you re standing, come on up. [applause] she said, don t forget me. congratulations. we are so proud of you. thank you. [applause] i have some juice with candy crowley. have been time i waiting for. i will give a toast. for nearly 100 years, our toast has only been one toast, which is to the president. given all the work for the scholarship fund, i would like everyone to stand and raise a toast to the president of the united states and mrs. obama. cheers. without further ado, i would like introduce the president of the united states. [cheers and applause] thank you. thank you. how do you like my new entrance music? [cheers and applause] rush limbaugh warned you about this. second term, maybe. [laughter] second term, baby. [laughter] we are changing things around here a little bit. actually my advisors were a little worried about the new entrance music. they are little bit more traditional. they suggested i should start with some notes at my own expense just to take myself down a peg. i was like, after four and a half years, how many pegs are there left? [laughter] thank the white house correspondents. ed, you are doing an astounding job. [applause] we are grateful to the work you have done. for all of the dignitaries who are here and everyone, thank you for the outstanding service and all the men and women who are in uniform every single day. , ourf course extraordinary first lady, michelle obama. [applause] everybody loves michelle. she is on the cover of vogue. high poll numbers. don t worry. i got my own magazine cover. [laughter] i get it. i look in the mirror and i have to admit i m not the strapping young person i used to be. [laughter] [applause] time passes. you get a little gray. , even after all this time, i still make rookie mistakes. i m in california at a fundraiser and having a nice time. i happen to mention that a woman is the best looking attorney in the country. as you can imagine, i got trouble when i got back home. [laughter] who knew eric holder was so sensitive? [laughter] then there is the easter egg roll. looks like a nice, fun event with the kids. i go to the basketball courts. i took money to shots 22 shots. made 2. 2 hits. 20 minutes. the executives at nbc asked, what is your secret? [laughter] so, yes, maybe i have lost a step, but some things are beyond my control. this whole controversy about zaisy going to cuba jay- going to cuba. [laughter] of course, everyone has got plenty of vice. advice. one said i could solve all of my problems if i was just like michael douglas in the american president. michael, what is your secret? could it be that you were an actor in an aaron sorkin liberal fantasy? [laughter] might that have something to do it? i do not know. check in with me. maybe it is something else. , i recognize that this job can take a toll on you. i understand second term you need a burst of new energy. try some new things. we are willing to try anything. we borrowed one of michele s tips. [laughter] i thought this looked pretty bounce.o bounds , i want to give a shout out to conan o brien. [applause] ed.s talking to i understand when they are considering own and o brien for the gig, there was the age-old dilemma to offer it to him now or wait five years until they give it to jimmy fallon. [crowd oohs] that was a little harsh. i love conan. cnn has taken some knocks lately. i admire their commitment. my former advisers that have switched over to the dark side, axelrode.axle right the history channel is not here. i guess they are embarrassed about the whole obama is the double thing. devil thing. that never kept fox news from showing up. they thought the comparison was not fair to satan. [laughter] the media landscape is changing rapidly. you cannot keep up with the. with it. i remember when buzz feed was something i did around 2 a.m. it is true. [laughter] i found a new favorite source for political news. these guys are great. everyone should check it out. it is called whitehouse.gov. i cannot get enough of it. i really do respect the press. i recognize that the press and i have different jobs to do. my job is to be president. your job is to keep me humble. frankly i think i m doing my job better. [laughter] part of the problem is that everyone is so cynical. we are constantly feeding .ynicism and conspiracies remember a few months ago prime minister shouldn t put out a photograph of me going shooting at camp david? a number of people insisted this has been photoshop. tonight have something to confess you are right. can we show them the actual photo? [laughter] we were trying to tone it down a little bit. that was an awesome day. [laughter] there are other new players in the media landscape as well like super pacs. did you know that sheldon spent $100 million of his own money last year on negative ads? he must really dislike me. to spend that kind of money. that is oprah money. you could buy an island and call it nobama for that kind of money. sheldon would have been better off offering me when hundred million dollars to drop out of the race. [laughter] [applause] i probably would not have taken it, but i thought about it. [laughter] michelle would have taken it. [laughter] you think i m joking. [laughter] i know republicans are still sorting out what happened in 2012. what they all agree upon is reaching out. call me self centered, but i could think of when minority they could start with. [laughter] hello. [applause] think of me as a trial run. see how it goes. [laughter] if they won t come to me, i will come to them for stop come to them. recently had a dinner with a number of republican senators. i will admit it was not easy. a proposed i proposed a toast. of course, some folks still don t think i spend enough time with congress. why don t you get a treat drink with mitch mcconnell, they asked? really? why don t you get a drink with mitch mcconnell? [laughter] i m sorry. i get frustrated sometimes. [laughter] i m not giving up. i m taking my charm offensive on the road. second barbecue with ted cruz. kentucky bluegrass concert with rand paul. and a book burning with michele bachmann. [mix of laughs and oohs] has let mefensive learn some interesting things going on in congress. it turns out absolutely nothing. the point of my charm offensive is simple. we need to make progress on some important issues. republicans fell in love with the sequester and now they cannot stop talking about how much they hate it, like we are trapped in a taylor swift album. [laughter] one senator who had reached across the aisle recently is marco rubio. about 2016. he has not finished a single term in the senate and he think he is ready to be president. kids these days. on thursday, i went to the opening of the bush presidential library in dallas. wonderful event. that got me inspired to get started on my own legacy. it will begin by building another edifice right next to the bush library. can we show that? [laughter] i m also hard at work on plans for the obama library. some have suggested we put it in my birthplace, but i would rather keep it in the united states. [laughter] [applause] did anyone not see that joe coming? joke coming? [laughter] only gallup? dick morris? [laughter] speaking of presidents and their legacies, i want to acknowledge a wonderful run, and steven spielberg and daniel day-lewis who are here tonight. we had a screening of their most recent film lincoln. extraordinary film. i m nervous about stephen s next project. i saw a behind-the-scenes look on hbo. let s check it out. roll the tape. i was thrilled that lincoln was a success. i was thinking about what to do next. in the middle of the night i woke up and it hit me. obama. why wait? picking the right actor to play obama, that was a challenge. we never got his transcripts. they say he is kind of aloof. i need someone to become barack obama. it turns out the answer was right in front of me all along. daniel day-lewis. [laughter] he nailed it. it took a while. hello, ohio. i love you back. let me be clear about that. [laughter] once we had daniel to play obama, we had to guess the rest of the team. working with a legend mike daniel is intimidating. he makes everyone better. without them, i never could have played joe biden. literally. i am joe biden. trying todest part, understand his motivations. what makes them tick? why doesn t he get mad? if i was him, i get mad all the time. but i am not. i am daniel day-lewis. [laughter] [applause] remarkable transformation. do i really summit that? sound like that? groucho once said , senator cruise, that is groucho marx, not carl. the other guy. he once told an audience, before i speak come a i something important to say. those same lines, i want to close on a more serious note. there has been no shortage of news to cover over the past few weeks. the suspense and very hard days for many of our citizens. ,ven as we gather here tonight our thoughts are not far from the people of boston and the people of west, texas and the families in the midwest coping with some terrible floods. we have had some difficult days. but even when the days seemed darkest, we have seen humanity shine at its brightest. we have seen first responders and national guardsmen who dashed into danger. whoenforcement officers lived their oath, to serve and protect. and everyday americans opening their homes and their hearts to perfect strangers. we also saw journalist that their best. especially those that took their time to wait upstream through the torrent of digital rumors to just family didn t verify leads and fact. if anyone wonders whether newspapers are a thing of the past, all you need to do is pick up or log on to papers like the boston globe yuriko the boston globe. [applause] when their communities and the wider world needed them most, they were there. making sense of the events that might, at first blush, seem beyond our comprehension. that is what great journalism is. that is what great journalist do. that is ip williams nude nickname around the nbc newsroom why peteppy that is around new nickname the nbc newsroom is big papi. i got a chance to meet many of the volunteers and police officers who raced to help when hardship hit. i was reminded, as i always am when i meet our men and women in uniform, whether they are abroad or here back home, our walter reed. .hey don t do it to be honored they don t do it to be celebrated. they do it because they love their families and they love their neighborhoods and they love their country. these men and women should inspire all of us in this room to live up to those same standards. to be worthy of their trust. with the same fidelity and the same integrity and the same sense of purpose and the same love of country. onwe are only focused profits or ratings or polls, then we are contributing to the cynicism that so many people feel right now. [applause] those of us in this room tonight, we are incredibly lucky. the fact is, we can do better. all of us. those of us in public office, those of us in the press, those who produce entertainment for our kids, those with power, those with influence, all of us, including myself, we can strive to value those things that i suspect led most of us to do the work that we do in the first place. because we believed in something that was true. we believed in service. in the idea that we can have a lasting, positive impact on the lives of the people around us. that is our obligation. we should gladly embrace on behalf of all of those folks who are counting on us. on behalf of this country that has given us so much. thank you all for the great work you do. god bless you all, may god bless the united states of america. [applause] thank you, mr. president. without further ado, mr. conan o brien. [applause] thank you. thank you. please remain seated. that is not necessary. [applause] [laughter] thank you, don t stand, that wouldn t be right. good evening, thank you, mr. president, mrs. obama, distinguished members of the press and bon jovi. [laughter] yes, it is an honor to share the stage with the president. when you think about it, he and i are a lot alike. we both went to harvard, we both have two children and we both we didtold joe biden not have extra tickets for tonight event. [laughter] we also have something else in common, i too recently got in trouble for talking about a public official s good looks. it was when i would not shut up about that stone cold fox, secretary of transportation ray lahood. oh, man. i like the cut of his jib. [laughter] president obama, you had some great jokes. it was a pleasure watching you stand here and do what i do. now it is only fair that i get to do what you do. that is right, ladies and gentlemen, for the next 15 minutes i will be mired in a dysfunctional standoff with congress. this is going to be fun. [laughter] i would like to formally congratulate the president on his reelection. congratulations. [applause] as you all know, he is hard at work reading jobs. ,ince he was first selected the number of popes has doubled. [laughter] and the number of tonight show hosts has tripled. congratulations. [laughter] , i would like to congratulate president george w. bush on big dedication of his presidential library. yes, the library has millions of books, articles, and documents and if you go, you can be the first to read them. [laughter] you can t hurt me. getes and gentlemen, let s going. right here at the start i am going to share something with you people and it does not leave this room. i say this with absolute confidence, because we are on c- span. [laughter] who doesn t love c-span, seriously? c-span. an entire channel shot the backup camera on a ford explorer. congratulations to c-span for winning the bid to broadcast this event. they beat out hd tv two, tvc south america and the hilton hotel how to check out channel. [laughter] that is right, the hilton. it is great to be here at the hilton. is it just me or is it time to stop using priceline to book this event cap? i love the hilton. i love their motto, sorry the radisson was booked. i was worried that because of the sequester we would be forced to hold this event at a less prestigious hotel then the dc hilton. then i was told that was not possible. [laughter] want to thank the hilton for accommodating us. they were kind enough to reschedule a cash for gold seminar. [laughter] of youway, for those here for the cash for gold seminar, that has been moved to salon be on the mezzanine. , therejoe biden asks are no extra tickets for that, either. weck announcement, before really get going, before we continue, if any of you are live tweeting this event, please use the #incapable oflivinginthemoment. [laughter] yeah. yeah. yeah. , to any u.s. senators here tonight, if you would like to switch your dessert or your position on gay marriage, please signal a waiter. [laughter] speaking of dinner, tonight entrées or how about and filet and filetalibut, mignon. or as cnn reported, lasagna and couscous. [laughter] there is a gavel here, and i don t know why. [gavel pounds] here is a fun fact about tonight s food, everything you it was personally shocked by wayne lapierre. .- shot by wayne mott the air don t worry it was during a home invasion. the fish came in through the window. it wasn t peppercorn, it was buckshot. incidentally, you may not know this, but wayne lapierre is merely the executive vice president of the nra. which begs the question, how freaking crazy do you have to be to be the actual president of the nra? [laughter] [applause] he is not even at the top. [laughter] thatld like to acknowledge earlier this evening there was some confusion with the seating chart. for a moment, someone accidentally sat governor chris christie with the republicans. that was awkward, and i apologize. very awkward. speaking of tables, before dinner, i had a chance to mingle, you probably saw me. i worked the crowd, shook some hands and sold my twitter account to al jazeera for $500 million. they will buy anything. it is an absolute joy to be her at the white house correspondents dinner. last year, tom brokaw criticized this event for having too many superstars and a-list celebrities. when i told him i would be attending this year, he said, that is more like it. [laughter] that should not be funny to you. but this is really a star- studded event. this year, you have taken it to new heights. i have to congratulate you. it s. you have some of the guy from duct minus to hear. - duck dynasty. one thing,nly mean the guys from storage wars said no. , don t get dynasty me wrong. i really don t think the whistle all my god, it works. he is here. one.ays hated that as some of you know, this is my second time speaking at this event. 1995, a years ago in lot has changed since then. today you can get real-time information on world events from something small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. back in 1995, we called that george stephanopoulos. [laughter] is heree if george because there is a crouton in the way. [laughter] how muchzing to think our country has changed in 18 years. think about it. if in 1995 he told me that in 2013, we would have an african- american president with a middle name hussein, who was just reelected to a second term in a sluggish economy, i would have said, oh, you must have run against mitt romney. [laughter] by the way, no offense, i do congratulate you on your victory, but as a late-night comedian, i was kind of pulling for the rich guy who s or stansted the olympics. whose horse danced in the olympics. [laughter] thisemographics of country have been rapidly changing over the past two decades. i look forward to hosting this event 18 years from now. then, my opening line will be, [speaking spanish] si. especialmente, presidente mario lopez. my prior experience has taught me how these dinners work. if the president laughs, everyone laughs. if the fox news table laughs, a little girl just fell off her bike. [laughter] how are you doing, bill? i ll be washington news mediator tonight, including the stars of online journalism. i did the huffington post has a table. which has me wondering, if you are here, who is covering miley cyrus s latest nip slip? who is assembling today s top 25 yogurt related tweets? [laughter] tot before dinner, i tried say hello to every on huffington, but she made me watch a 32nd ad first. 30-second ad first. [laughter] a lot of online stars in the room, but unfortunately not judge couldn t make it. he had a prior commitment to teach a web design class in 1997. the washington print media is also joining us this evening. the print media are here for two very good reasons. food and shelter. [laughter] some people say print media is dying, but i don t believe it. neither does my blacksmith. [laughter] you have got to meet zachariah, he is great. newsweek, which after 80 years published its last print issue. time magazine might be gloating, but they really shouldn t, because time will outlive newsweek a way juliett outlived romeo. read the play, it is very smart. [laughter] things are so tough for media, reuters is having its after party right here at the hilton. because nothing says we are having a great here like having your after party at the same table where you just had dinner. [laughter] with that in mind, reuters is asking everyone here to leave a little wine at the bottom of the glass. [laughter] to be fair, print media still has a big star in bob woodward. got to give it up for bob woodward. [applause] earlier this evening, a waiter asked him if he wanted regular or decaf and he said, threatening me. threatening me! some big names in television news. when it comes to television news, we have a divided landscape. fox news is watched by conservatives, msnbc watched by liberals and cnn is watched by people who clean the offices at cnn. [laughter] [oohs] oh, it gets worst. cnn s ratings are so low, when it comes up, james earl jones says, you are watching cnn? what the hell? i have to say, in the past two years, cnn has made some odd moves. larrylaced the popular king with one of the footman from downton abbey. it is good to see my old friends at msnbc. chris matthews is here. chris matthews has the only show where the commercial exists just so they can wipe the spittle off the lens. [laughter] during the boston coverage on msnbc last week, chuck todd stopped a pundit from speculating on on fire side unverified information. there is no joke here. i m just letting the people at cnn know that you can do that. [laughter] this is a learning experience. fox news star bill o reilly, he has become quite the author. two recent bestsellers, killing kennedy and killing lincoln. is now working on his next book, due out this fall, this time about the killing of jesus. it will be the first time in history that his death is blamed on obamacare. [laughter] two quick shout outs to pbs and npr. pbs yes! [applause] those people love to party. be safe, where a tote bag. it works. you have got to love npr. still the number one source for news delivered as if there is a toddler sleeping in the next room. [laughter] shh! nbc news is in the house. they have had a rough go of it. the today show let go of inquiry. after being told that an curry said, how broker tells the world that he crafted answer the white house and i am getting fired? reason there are no more chores of the white house, they re still hosing down. [crowd oohs] brian williams is here. i am a big fan of your show. if you haven t seen it, imagine brand delivering the evening news on a different floor of the building, a little later, with a slightly different type. it is a mind blower. chit o around the room, i realize this is one big high school cafeteria. that is all it is. think about it. fox is the jocks. msnbc is the nerds. loggers are the costs bloggers are the goths. npr is the table for kids with peanut allergies. [laughter] al jazeera is the weird foreign- exchange student nobody talks to. and media, you are the poor kid who died sophomore year in a car crash. [laughter] cheer up, we dedicate the yearbook to you. thaturse, the biggest or people covered this past year was the republicans failure to repack recapture the white house. hardly fit in fair hard to believe they did not fare better with this port of celebrities like ted nugent and meet house. meatloaf. they underestimated the number of voters who still drive carpeted vans. [laughter] the republican party s on the mend. one rising star on the right is senator marco rubio. or as he is known in the republican party, our black guy. [laughter] as of today come in the u.s. senate has a number of african- american senators. two. two. in other words, there are now more african-americans in the senate and in a mumford and sons concert. thank you, younger people. understand! i don t what s he babbling about? [laughter] who is this man? he reallyecently burst through when he ran for vice president. after the election, he said president obama was reelected because of the high turnout of urban voters. likede was asked how he his coffee he said, no milk, no sugar, just urban. [laughter] writess rnc chairman priebus. - reince tonight he is sitting between his brothers lather and repeat. [laughter] house majority leader eric cantor is here. or acolyte referred to him, yet another jewish republican from or as i like to refer to him, yet another jewish republican from the south. also joining us, a condiment from new york named steve israel. he is from new york and his name is israel. there is pandering, and then there is pandering. that is like having a congressman from south carolina jesusus h gone to h. gun. [laughter] you ve got to use this thing, it is fantastic. [gavel pounds] i mentioned chris christie earlier, governor christie and shaquille o neal are sitting at the same dinner table. let s give it up for the real unsung hero tonight, their waiter. [laughter] that poor bastard. .oing to lose an arm will an arm. and we have one or two supreme court justices. they seem divided over same-sex marriage. the liberal justices favorite while the conservatives oppose union between two men, unless it is antonin scalia and clarence thomas. what the hell was that? speaker john boehner is not here tonight. speaker banner and president obama are still struggling to get along. president obama and john blindr, kind of like a date between anderson cooper and rachel maddow. in theory, they understand each other s position, but deep down, you know nothing is ever going to happen. [laughter] [applause] [gavel pounds] speaking of nothing happening, we are all hoping for nothing to happen with north korea. that got me wondering, what is with kim jong-un? in the past, we have had really scary enemies like saddam hussain and hitler. now, suddenly our nemesis is a pouty teenage boy who dresses like rosie o donnell at the emmys. kim jong-un does not understand that we aren t afraid of him. what that guy doesn t get is that we already have an unstable peninsula that will ultimately bring down america. it is called florida. [laughter] [applause] yes it is. yes, president obama has a lot on his plate right now. he is at the very nice stage where there are no more secrets left to come out about him. we all know that he lived in indonesia as a child, studied at a muslim seminary and occasionally a dog. ate dog. from the beginning, a kid who had his eyes set on the u.s. presidency. [laughter] check him a check, and check. here i come. i know the relationship between the president and the press can seem a bit strained at times. some in this room have accused him of being distant and aloof. when i asked the president about it earlier, he said, oh, and then walked away. [laughter] it is only natural, but mr. president election was less exciting than the first time around in 2008. an election night, you celebrated with hundreds of thousands of people in chicago s grant park. it was fascinating. this time around, you split the hot dog did not ask about. it did not have the same buzz. it has been several months since you were reelected, so i am curious, why are you still sending everyone five e-mails a day asking for more money? you one. you won. do you have a gambling problem we don t know about? did you put it all on gonzaga? you did, didn t you? he did. [gavel pounds] president obama has already made a lot of changes in his second term. you recently appointed john kerry and chuck hagel. smart moves. the only two people in the united to look even more tired than you. [laughter] a great strategy. mr. president, you will leave office a very young man. the presidency has taken hold taken it s toll. you are starting to look like a judge on law and order. just say, you are on thin ice, counselor. you could have that part right away. your hair is so white, it could be a member of your cabinet. [laughter] [crowd oohs] he can handle it. he recently picked t n treasury secretary, jack lew. if the president ever has to let him go, he can say, it is not lew, it s me. [laughter] the quote a city must but the president is that he is always the coolest guy in the room. that is what everyone says. he is the coolest guy in the room. here is my question. who else is in that room? it is not hard to be the cool one when the other guys in the room r biden, hagel, and carry. i would be cool to if i was in a steve ville sackett showing someone how to do the harlem shake. about thee some jokes president this evening. i am looking forward to my audit. [laughter] it is coming. i know. i would like to take a moment here and change gears and say some into the president. regarding the events of the past two weeks. some of you may not know this. i grew up in boston. but parents still live there. my brother, luke, raised his family in watertown. i would like to take this opportunity to thank, you mr. president, for visiting that great city and helping people begin to heal with your inspiring words. you made a huge difference. [applause] it has been said recently that you don t mess with boston. as someone who grew up there, i would like to echo that sentiment. it is really pretty simple. if you re going to pick on a city, don t choose one where nine out of 10 people are related to a cop. don t do it. it is stupid. that includes myself. i have one more thing to mention before i go.