Saturday night in Washington, D.C. was the night journalists look forward to all year – Nerd Prom. Otherwise known as the White House Correspondence Association (WHCA) dinner, journalists and media types, along with some celebrities, politicians, and other public figures gather in a big ballroom and celebrate each other. It is an obnoxious exercise that bores most of the viewing audience.

This year was a little bit different. Don’t get me wrong – there were plenty of smug self-congratulatory bon mots among the press corps. Most of them are full of themselves, as we know from watching them on television. However, this year they actually focused on something that they should focus on and that is the detention of journalists overseas. In past years I always thought it was odd that people like Austin Tice, a freelance journalist (and former Marine), were only sometimes briefly acknowledged. Tice has been held in Syria since 2012. His family lives in Houston and they have never given up on working for his release. His mother, Debra Tice, was a guest at the WHCA dinner last year and again this year. After last year’s dinner, she met with Joe Biden at the White House and he assured her he would work to get Austin home. During Biden’s time at the podium Saturday night, he spoke passionately about Austin’s release and asked Debra to stand up and be acknowledged by those present.

This year Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is detained in a Russian prison on phony espionage charges. His arrest put a fresh focus on American hostages overseas. His detention is the first detention of a reporter since the end of the Cold War in Russia. His family was present at the dinner, too. They were acknowledged by Biden and he pledged to bring Evan home.

Biden demanded that Evan and Austin be released by their captors. He also brought up Paul Whelan, who is also sitting in a Russian prison on espionage charges. There were no members of Whelan’s family at the dinner, though.

Unfortunately for these families, Joe Biden is looked upon as weak and a feckless commander-in-chief around the world. Bad actors like Putin aren’t fearful of Joe Biden.

One former hostage was a guest at the dinner Saturday night and that was WNBA basketball player Brittney Griner. She and her wife were acknowledged by Biden, who enjoyed taking credit for her release. Her release has been controversial because she was part of a prisoner swap that included Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, a.k.a. the Merchant of Death.

Joe and Jill Biden, along with Kamala Harris and her husband Doug, were seated on the dais. It was the first time the president, first lady, vice president, and second spouse were present at the dinner since 2015.

There were some gentle dings thrown Biden’s way by the host, Tamara Keith, NPR White House correspondent and president of the WHCA. Referring to Biden’s unavailability to the press, she said Biden takes questions but, “Maybe not as many as we would like.” Biden was seated next to her so it’s not surprising that she treated him with kid gloves.

One interesting tidbit was when Tamara Keith spoke about a favorite movie of hers, “Broadcast News” from 1987. Star Holly Hunter wore a specific dress to an event in the movie and Keith was wearing the same dress Saturday night. That was wild. She showed a photo of a scene in which Holly Hunter wore the dress.

When Biden spoke, he began with talk of the American hostages. He did pretty well. Then he went into full campaign mode. He went after Tucker Carlson and Fox News, in particular, as well as Don Lemon. The crowd loved it.

Fresh off announcing his reelection campaign and chaos on cable news this week, President Joe Biden had a wealth of material to pull from. And if you thought POTUS wasn’t going to mention with glee the axing of Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon from Fox News and CNN, the MAGA hold on the GOP, and Florida Gov. DeSantis’ failing war with the Walt Disney Company, you clearly couldn’t read the ballroom on Saturday.

“I get that age is a completely reasonable issue,” the 80-year old President quipped in a relatively short performance. “It’s on everyone’s mind, by everyone I mean the New York Times,” he added. “I like Rupert Murdoch,” Biden went on to say of the 93-year old Fox News owner. “How can I dislike a guy who makes me look look Harry Styles?”

“You say I’m over the hill,” the self-mocking Biden said. “Don Lemon would say that’s a man in his prime,” the president went on to joke, in a reference to the now ex-CNN host’s possibly career-ending insult of Nikki Haley earlier this year when she announced her 2024 White House bid. The Lemon joke easily got the biggest laugh of the night from the seasoned crowd, which is full of CNN execs and hosts.

Getting laughs and some groans for taking a jab at longtime critic Carlson, Biden leaned in deeper to the Murdoch-owned conservative outlet. “Fox News owned by Dominion Voting Systems,” POTUS said, bringing up the $787.5 million settlement the channel made earlier this month to avoid what looked to be a painful public defamation trial. Stating that Fox News reporters were in the house because they “couldn’t say no to a free meal,” Biden added, “I called Fox honest, fair and truthful, and I could be sued for defamation.”

There was applause from the crowd when Biden said he just launched his campaign for reelection. They are his voting base, after all. Most of the reporters and network executives in that room will work hard to get Biden reelected in 2024.

Biden and Roy Wood, Jr. made jokes at the expense of Ron DeSantis. Clearly the Democrats are nervous that Biden may not get to run against Trump again.

I have a confession to make. I didn’t know who the headline speaker was when his name was announced. I wasn’t familiar with Roy Wood, Jr. and that is because he is a Daily Show correspondent. I don’t watch the Daily Show. Ever. He made an attempt to slam both sides of the aisle but his strongest zings were against Fox News, Tucker Carlson, and Donald Trump. Shocker, I know. He did go after Don Lemon, though, whom he called an a**hole.

“Speaking of a**holes, Don Lemon is out of a job,” Wood went on to say, touching on material previously explored in a softer manner by Biden. “Don Lemon. My dog, Don Lemon. Don Lemon released a statement saying he got fired from CNN, then CNN released a statement saying that they offered Don a meeting. They had to part ways, because Don Lemon can’t even accurately report a story about Don Lemon.”

When he began his routine, he held up some papers and said to Joe Biden, “I think you left some of your classified documents up here.” He took other shots at Biden, including about his age.

“They rioted because they didn’t want to work until 64,” Roy Wood Jr said Saturday night at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner of recent uprisings over pension reform in France. “Meanwhile in America we have an 80-year-old man begging us for four more years of work,” the Daily Show correspondent added, with President Joe Biden sitting just a few away.

“Let me finish the job,” Wood went on to say of POTUS’ recently announced reelection campaign. “That’s not a campaign slogan, that’s a plea.”

“Say what you want with our president, when he wakes up from that nap, work gets done,” Wood noted of Biden, oft-criticized for his age and gaffs. “He might doze off but then it’s infrastructure bill. Student loan forgiveness. Bring Brittney Griner home.”

He made a lame crack that a scandal of the Biden administration concerns Kamala and the question of what she does. What does she do? He said that question is being asked because she is a woman. He said he didn’t know what Pence did in office. The difference is that Pence was out in front of the pandemic and the coronavirus task force at the White House after Trump asked him to coordinate the administration’s efforts. Kamala was asked to take on the Biden border crisis and she has been AWOL ever since. No one knows what she does because she doesn’t do anything. She travels and makes speeches about abortion and voting rights but that’s about it.

I’ll note that there were no shots taken at the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre. That only happens when it’s someone like Sarah Huckabee-Sanders sitting on the dais. If anyone deserves mocking, it’s KJP.

Now I know who Roy Wood, Jr. is and I haven’t been missing a thing.