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A Guest List: White House Correspondents' Dinner

by Becca Stanek

Everyone who is anyone will be at the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner on Saturday, with the likely exception of one person who has been making headlines quite a bit lately — Hillary Clinton. While it might sound like a big dinner filled with reporters and famous people at the White House would be just the place to find a Democratic presidential hopeful, it’s more likely that Clinton will make an appearance in the dinner’s jokes than at the event itself.

Last year, long before Clinton had even made her presidential bid official, she managed some mentions at the annual dinner where winners of the WHCA journalism award for White House coverage are announced. Here’s a sampling of some of last year's jokes about Obama’s potential successor, the first made by Obama and the second by the dinner’s host, comedian Joel McHale:

Let's face it, Fox: You will miss me when I'm gone. It will be harder to convince the American people that Hillary was born in Kenya.
Hillary Clinton has a lot going for her… as our first female president, we could pay her 30 percent less.

We’ll have to wait until Saturday night to hear what jokes Obama and the 2015 dinner host, Saturday Night Live comedian Cecily Strong, have cooked up about Clinton this year. But don’t worry, there are plenty of other aspects of the WHCA dinner to look forward to while you’re wondering what cracks will be made about Clinton.

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First off, the guest list is seriously decked out with celebrities. Naturally, actors from Veep, House of Cards, Scandal, and West Wing will be in attendance. Other big names include Kerry Washington, Chrissy Teigen, New York Jets wide receiver Brandon Marshall, Maria Menounos, and reality television star Brody Jenner. This year, a lot of Internet and tech stars will also be in attendance, including everyone from YouTube activists to Vine stars to bloggers.

But, let’s back up here and look at who else will be in attendance, aside from celebrities. After all, the dinner is more about journalists and politicians than it is A-list actors and musicians. For starters, for the fourth time ever, a woman will host the dinner since the WHCA was founded in 1914, Bloomberg Politics reports. While Cecily Strong has kept the content of her jokes tightly under wraps, her Saturday Night Live performances offer a pretty strong guarantee that whatever it is, it will be funny.

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The rest of the list includes some of the biggest names from every major news outlet, such as The Atlantic, Fox News, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The Huffington Post. Even Sarah Koenig from the podcast Serial will be there. Big names in the corporate world will also be in attendance. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a political dinner without the politicians. Aside from the president, there will be senators, ambassadors, and White House staff in attendance.So get ready to keep refreshing Twitter on Saturday night. More than a few Clinton mentions are sure to come out of this dinner — alongside dozens of other hilarious moments amongst Washington’s elite.

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