Jon Lovett on The White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Jimmy Kimmel's Joke & the D.C. Grindr Party

0:00 Our next guest went from the White House under Obama to Podcaster,

0:04 which is the opposite of how they do it now.

0:06 He has two popular podcasts, Pod Save America and Love It or Leave It.

0:10 Please welcome John Love It.

0:24 How are you?

0:26 I'm doing great.

0:27 It's very good.

0:28 I'm doing great.

0:28 Yes.

0:28 I know you were in Washington over the weekend.

0:31 That's right.

0:31 But you did not go to the correspondence dinner.

0:34 No.

0:35 As a rule, if JD Vance and I are at a party at the same time,

0:41 either he made a mistake or I made a mistake.

0:44 You know, I got out of town.

0:45 I was on a plane.

0:47 Uh when it all happened, the Wi-Fi wasn't working.

0:51 Oh.

0:50 Uh by the time I landed, it was already about building a ballroom.

0:55 That's right.

0:56 Now, am I nuts in thinking that he might now have a point about this ballroom?

1:02 Yeah,

1:02 I am.

1:03 You're nuts.

1:05 Why?

1:05 Because the problem with the ballroom is not

1:07 the idea or concept of a philosophical ballroom.

1:12 It's that he knocked down the East Room without asking anybody permission.

1:16 Like,

1:18 I forgot about that.

1:20 The ballroom doesn't become more legal because someone

1:24 did something evil and stupid at a different ballroom.

1:28 Like, it's not how ballrooms work.

1:30 It isn't.

1:31 NO.

1:31 WELL, WAIT A MINUTE.

1:32 Let me ask you this.

1:34 How do you know so much about ballrooms?

1:36 What do you spend your life at a Chuck-e-Cheese?

1:38 What do you know about these ballrooms?

1:40 Had some fun in those places.

1:42 You um uh did you go to like parties and stuff?

1:45 Three parties?

1:46 So, I host a show called Love It or Leave It.

1:48 did a big live show and then Crooked Media,

1:51 the company that John and Tommy and I uh founded that does Pod Save America.

1:55 We had a big party, but then the goal was for me to get John and Tommy,

1:58 my my straight my straight boys, to the Grinder party.

2:04 Ah,

2:02 because Grinder, you know, the app

2:06 had a party and they've never had a party before.

2:08 And so I'm trying to get my boys to the Grinder party.

2:11 All right.

2:11 And then there's a there's a traffic jam at the Belgian embassy and we're like,

2:14 "What's going on?" and and oh,

2:16 everybody's trying to talk to Gavin Newsome and some reporter's like,

2:19 "Are you trying to talk to Gavin Newsome?" I'm like,

2:20 "I don't I'm trying to get my boys to the Grinder

2:23 party." And then we get to the Grinder party.

2:27 Lindsey Graham is there.

2:30 No.

2:29 No, he's not.

2:34 No.

2:34 No.

2:34 But we're at this.

2:36 Wouldn't that be nice for him, though?

2:38 Boy, he's there in his mind.

2:41 You don't have to be a great mentalist to figure that out.

2:47 But so we're at the Grinder party.

2:50 All right.

2:50 And they ran out of alcohol.

2:53 No.

2:56 Gay people have been fighting for 50 years.

2:59 All right.

3:00 Marcia P.

3:01 Johnson threw a brick at the Stonewall riot and now

3:05 the gays are running out of alcohol and and it's

3:09 like you're at this thing and you're like who do I who I got to get a a martini?

3:14 There was no one.

3:16 No one.

3:17 But so stop it.

3:20 So we're at Wait, we're at the Grinder party and because

3:26 my fellow Pon America Go co-hosts are confident in their masculinity.

3:29 They they they're enjoying themselves at the Grinder Party.

3:32 But then who do we see?

3:33 We see the head of the Democratic National Committee, guy named Ken Martin

3:37 and and we think, "Oh, that's and I've been drinking." I was like,

3:39 "I'll say hi to the head of the DNC.

3:42 I forgot that we've been critical of the DNC."

3:46 Oh.

3:45 And said all of a sudden, I'm in this super intense conversation

3:48 with the head of the Democratic National Committee

3:51 because they they had written an a report about what went wrong in 2024,

3:55 but didn't release it because it went perfectly.

3:58 and and we're like, "We think the report should be released." So,

4:00 I'm in this like kind of a little bit of an intense conversation and I'm like,

4:03 "I've never seen this kind of passion from this guy before.

4:06 I've had a few drinks and I'm like,

4:07 maybe the atmosphere is like there's something going on here." No, there wasn't.

4:13 But now he's going to be on Pon Save America tomorrow.

4:15 Oh, he is.

4:16 Oh, all right.

4:17 It's But the thing about it is this dinner I thought

4:19 it was like a silly thing for a really long time.

4:22 Like, why is everybody being so cushy?

4:23 We're supposed to be the press supposed to hold people in power.

4:26 It

4:26 blurs the lines.

4:27 blurs the lines.

4:28 But now that we've lived under Trump for so long, it's like, you know what?

4:31 Maybe it's okay that people come together in one room once in a while and talk

4:35 to each other and have a couple drinks

4:36 and then go back to fighting again the next day.

4:38 Interesting.

4:39 So, you think uh which is different, I think, than what a lot of people think.

4:42 You think it is actually more appropriate now to be in a room for an event

4:47 that supports the First Amendment with somebody

4:49 who doesn't believe in the First Amendment.

4:52 No, I wouldn't be caught dead at the dinner.

4:54 Oh, okay.

4:55 the parties you mean.

4:56 But yeah, but it's nice to be around

4:58 people in real life as opposed to just fighting

5:00 on the internet because ultimately it is supposed to be

5:04 a a chance to poke fun at people in power.

5:06 That's what you were doing.

5:08 That's what you were doing.

5:08 You were using your first amendment right to poke fun of people at in power.

5:12 And that's what that whole weekend used

5:14 to be about before they changed comedian to mentalist.

5:20 Do you have any mentalist powers that um you can share with us?

5:23 But I'm sending a message to the mentalist right now.

5:27 What is the message?

5:30 You cancelled.

5:30 You funny.

5:37 I was I've been sending him that message all day.

5:42 Catholic.

5:41 Maybe you tuned in to my mentalist and then it went to the other mentalist.

5:45 Maybe I'm mentalizing.

5:46 Interesting.

5:47 You've been a part of the White House correspondent dinner.

5:49 You wrote jokes for President Obama.

5:50 That's right.

5:51 You did you write some of the jokes that there's a story that he got

5:54 so upset that Obama was making fun of him Trump that he ran for president?

6:01 No.

6:01 No.

6:02 We we were really proud because President Obama was great.

6:05 He could make fun of himself.

6:06 He could make fun of the press.

6:07 He could make fun of of Republicans.

6:09 And now we didn't yet understand just how

6:11 much Donald Trump couldn't yet take a joke.

6:14 Uh but I think we know that now.

6:16 We do know that.

6:17 Uh, but the whole point of the dinner is look,

6:20 everybody enjoys an inoffensive joke and good taste, right?

6:23 Like Trump was supposed to perform after a mentalist.

6:26 That's interesting because he's a bit of a magician.

6:28 He made America's reputation disappear.

6:31 But see, that's that's fine.

6:36 That's easy.

6:38 Everyone no one's going to have a problem with that.

6:39 But when things are tough, you need to be able to make jokes about dark

6:43 topics like how every you made fun of RFK Jr.

6:47 for seeming to race ahead of his wife Cheryl Hines as if he left her behind.

6:51 But I think that's really unfair because if the shooter were dead,

6:55 you only have 30 minutes or so to get that meat in the freezer.

7:02 Now that is in taste, but that's what democracy is all about, Jimmy.

7:07 That's right.

7:08 That's you couldn't be more correct on that.

7:10 Now you know things.

7:12 Why do you think they make a big deal out of something like a joke,

7:17 like a dumb joke, and try to make it into this?

7:20 Why do in your opinion, why do they do that?

7:22 What's their purpose?

7:25 I It's hard to get into their minds.

7:26 I'm no mentalist, but the I think it is wrong.

7:31 Political violence is incredibly dangerous.

7:33 It can tear a society apart.

7:35 There's nothing nothing to be gained from it.

7:37 I find it gross when people try to defend it, whatever the side.

7:40 And I think it's gross when people try to exploit it.

7:42 Because what political violence does is it

7:45 doesn't just try to silence one leader, one powerful person.

7:47 It tries to silence all of us.

7:49 It tries to decide something for all of us.

7:51 And that can't work.

7:52 We can't allow that to work.

7:53 So we should be able to denounce it collectively.

7:56 And that and so they want to go after you.

7:58 They want to go after everybody because on some level

8:00 they know that one person who has encouraged so much political

8:03 violence and has caused so much division and has raised

8:06 the temperature so high is the president of the United States.

8:09 And there's something comforting to go after you.

8:14 There's something comforting about going after their left,

8:17 their typical opponents, right?

8:19 as opposed to just facing the fact that yeah, it's bad when anybody,

8:23 a random person on the internet, defends political violence.

8:26 But it's especially dangerous when it's the most powerful person in the world.

8:29 Uh, by the same token,

8:31 I think it is also wrong when people compare Trump to to Hitler

8:35 or or say that that MAGA is a bunch of Nazis.

8:39 Like, I saw that insurrection.

8:41 Okay, Nazis were Hugo Boss.

8:48 So, you're saying that they're not as well-dressed?

8:53 Yeah.

8:54 Yeah.

8:54 Yeah.

8:54 Yeah.

8:56 Do you think it is the president's job to set the tone for the country?

9:03 Absolutely.

9:03 I think that I think I think Well, whether it's his job or not,

9:07 the president does set the tone for the country.

9:09 And the one thing I would just say is we've already been through uh an episode

9:14 of Donald Trump trying to get Jimmy Kimmel uh cancelled and gas is $6 a gallon.

9:20 Open the straight of our moose.

9:22 All right.

9:24 And by the way, uh you know, Jimmy, you're a lot like the Ayatollas.

9:32 Well, first of all, thank you.

9:37 Yep.

9:36 Um in what ways, John?

9:39 Thanks for asking.

9:40 Strike you down.

9:41 There's a dozen younger, hotter,

9:43 more extreme versions of Jimmy Kimmel just waking waiting to take power.

9:48 Bearded as well.

9:49 Absolutely.

9:49 Maybe gay.

9:51 Maybe gay.

9:51 We'll find out at the Grinder Party next year.

9:55 Absolutely.

9:56 I'll come.

9:56 I'll be one of your boys.

9:57 We'll get going there.

9:58 Yeah, that's great.

9:59 It's a date.

9:59 Well, good luck with Ken Martin tomorrow.

10:02 That's right.

10:03 I hope he's not too upset.

10:05 Let's hope he's not going to cancel because of this, right?

10:07 I we better not.

10:08 Such a great It's such a great conversation.

10:09 You know what?

10:10 If he does, we'll bring the wrath of Melania down on him.

10:13 I think it's I just want to say in a divided time,

10:17 I think it's beautiful that you could find

10:19 a way for Trump and his wife to reconnect.

10:23 You know what?

10:23 That's a very, very good point.

10:26 John Love it.

10:26 Everybody, his podcast are called Love It or Leave

10:29 It on Saturdays and Pod Save America on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday.

10:34 Thank you, John.

10:35 We'll be right back.