Correspondents dinner on twitter if you want to make a comment as well. [indiscernible] announcer anytime the president goes anywhere security is tight. Many members of the cabinet, lots of politicians, a lot of security goes into this event. The general manager of the hilton spoke with us at. The security is operated by the secret service. The hotel takes guidance. It starts with the secret service. Their plan is slightly different every year. They provide is the guidance on they will be operating. We take that and plan from there. It is very complicated. It requires a lot of experience. We are fortunate to have a good director of security who has worked with the secret service for many years. They are announcer they are running a bit late for the predinner program. They have their dinner. After that, the program. They give the Scholarship Award they hear from the president. They will introduce the board of the white house Correspondents Association. Cecily strong of saturday night live will be the entertainer for the evening. Live coverage all evening. [indiscernible] [indiscernible] announcer as we continue to watch the ballroom fill up, we want to play something for year. The executive director of the white house Correspondents Dinner it has gotten so big he Correspondents Association has hired a fulltime executive director to manage everything that goes on at this dinner. Here is she here she is. The first dinner, this is the 89th dinner. It messed some years due to war. But the dinner became what it is coincidentally when i started not because of may. 1993, bill clinton came to the white house and had such a following what hollywood. It has oversold. I accidentally oversold. We had to move the marine band. This year, it has always been the same. 262 tables. That is all that can fit. This year we have to give checks or make refunds. We could have seated another 1200 people. Announcer that was julia talking about the history of the dinner. The president and the first lady hold receptions prior to the dinner. This year, Joyce Woodhouse was the mother of dallas and brad woodhouse. She called in back in december. It is a classic call she made to tell her sons to quit fighting. If you want to see the photos that cspan is posting, at cspan is our twitter handle. [indiscernible] [indiscernible] [indiscernible] announcer the predinner program is about to begin. You can see the vips of entered the room. Everybody the things they will be having an dinner include crabmeat housemaid buttermilk dressing, peppery go pepe alaskan halibut. That should begin shortly. The president s own is in the room. [indiscernible] [applause] [hail to the chief plays] ladies and gentlemen please stand for the presentation of the colors. [applause] [applause] ladies and gentlemen, george lehner, major garrett, olivia knox bloomberg, tara lee, david morris, Cecily Strong. [applause] ladies and gentlemen please be seated. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, thanked join me in thanking the marine band. [applause] we are glad youre are here tonight. We invite you to enjoy your dinner. Our program will begin when you finish eating. [indiscernible] announcer live coverage of the white house Correspondents Dinner, they are a half hour behind schedule at this point. That is typical. A lot of people werent even in their seats prior to the president entering the room. Cspan will be with the program all night. After they are finished eating dinner you will hear from the president , from cecilys wrong from Cecily Strong. 2600 people in the ballroom. This is cspans live coverage. If you want to see behind the scenes coverage, follow us on twitter. cspan is our twitter handle. [indiscernible] announcer as the guests are served, we want to show you an interview Greta Bronner did with Cecily Strong today. This was taped yesterday. She gives a preview of what she thinks about the dinner. This years host, were talking the night before. Tell me, is the speech ready . Cecily strong i will probably be making it changes until i am done speaking. While i am sitting there im going to have little changes. I may add some things. If my brain works during the speech i may even do some tweaks. How many times have you practiced . Cecily strong i have been using friends as my audience my test audience. Ive been reading through everything and seeing what works. I practiced with them, and my dad. I wanted him to be a fresh laughter. He has heard most of it. Your dad has a loud laugh. Did you get some loud laughs from him . Cecily strong i did. I was be reading it. I want those real laughs from him. How have you prepared for tomorrow night . Cecily strong i dont know that i am prepared mentally. I have a great group of writers that im working with. We had a couple meetings where we talked about what we wanted to ride. Some ideas of what we wanted to hit. Then we had some joke reads. Weve had this two week hiatus, so i have been in atlanta. A lot of emailing back and forth. Edits and edits and on top of that. New joke packets coming in on top that. Are they saturday night live writers . Cecily yes. Did you put this group together . Cecily yes. Why did you think you want to get this group together . Cecily i worked with a lot of the people from update and i knew i wanted to work with them. Seth did such a great job. Why not use his people . There are a couple of writers in the show that have good brains for this kind of thing. I was nervous they would not say yes, but lorne asked some people and they are more likely to say yes to lorne. Give you any advice . Cecily a little bit about having a lot of jokes and self editing. He sent me a text today saying he was proud and excited for you. You better. [laughter] why did you say yes, and how did you get the call . Cecily i got the call through my dad who left me a voicemail saying he got an email from his friend chrissy, who was inviting me to the dinner somehow. Whatever it was, it was confusing and i thought it meant he was going to go and then he said he is going to speak so i assumed he was going to do a panel or something. When yes, are you going to go . Are you going to do it . I was like, what is this . I called him, he sent me the email and it took us at the office like three days to even find out it was real. Once i heard it was real, i was hoping that it was on a work week so i can easily say no. And be like, i am so grateful, thank you so much, but i cant. Are you nervous . Cecily very nervous. Why is that . Cecily i have heard from everyone who has gone before or with thought about going before that it is a tough room and it is tough to win in that room. For a lot of comedians, it is not an ideal situation. But it is such an a mazing opportunity it overshadows the bad. You have the audience in the room and the audience at home watching. And how you thread that needle . Cecily ill find out i guess. We do have a Live Audience and i come from live theater. Im used to that. They will have a camera on me. I hope. I cant miss that part up, i hope. Did your dad give you any advice . Cecily no. He tried his second joke today and both i have been my, no. [laughter] im always threatening, you want me to say that . You want to hear how many laughs that gets, dad . Im not going to. Any jokes you want to share with us . Cecily that our my dads . That or tomorrow night. Cecily no way. I have to save them. Anything offlimits . Anyone offlimits . Cecily there are no limits really. In my head, even as something is a little bit biting or cutting i would rather that everything is funny. That is the most important. Meaner jokes i think you can hear it in a crowd when it joke is not working and it is mean. Sometimes you can take little jabs in there, but they are funny. Its ok. Cecily you have Hillary Clinton. You have Hillary Clinton the 2016 republican contenders. Cecily we may mention hillary and the republican contenders. I dont know. What topics . Cecily the big election is coming. That is huge. There are so many people you can poke fun at in that. And general news, topical things. I think the contenders will be a big chunk. Following the president , how does that factor into cecily its a nightmare. He is so funny and he gets to go first. He will tell a bunch of jokes that i may be planning on telling that i have to seriously cancel out so i dont do the joke. Clear channel any of your snl characters . Will you channel any of your snl characters . Cecily they are all exaggerated versions of me. I grew up in chicago. I did a lot of theater. I went and got my bfa in theater from cal ed and i went to the groundlings and loved it and decided i wanted to go that route and i moved back to chicago to study at second city and i was performing in touring at second city and then i did a showcase for snl and at the end of the summer, i was in new york. What was your dad and moms influence . Cecily my whole family my mom was always very supportive in theater and my dad was interested, but i think getting snl really was exciting for him and i think this is there could not be anything better for his dad. This is his world. Will he be there . Cecily he will. Cecily strong, thank you. Have fun. Cecily afterwards, i definitely will. I can promise you that. Cecily strong will follow the president tonight in the speaking linux. She will be the last person you hear from, the comedian this evening. The comedian is chosen by the white house Correspondents Association and primarily by the president of the white house Correspondents Association. That person is Christi Parsons of the tribune company. She talked about what she looked for. Everybody gives you your opinion, but that is one responsibility traditionally that falls to the White House Correspondent association president. I have been thinking about it for a long time. Last two president s were kind enough to let me watch their process and see how that played out. I am sure that i wanted to do. The Chicago Tribune is where i have worked for 25 years. I still work for tribune publishing. I just like midwestern humor. She is a funny, nice girl who says very cutting things in such a heartland kind of way. Wait a minute, she kind of sliced me up there. I think that is going to be a cool thing to see from the podium. That was Christi Parsons talking about why she chose Cecily Strong to be this years entertainment. Any comments you would like to make what you would like to follow the tweets sent out by cspan or using whcd and you can make a comment on our facebook page. There is the president and Christi Parsons having a conversation at the head table and having a little bit of a no sh. They usually do not eat too much of the head table. The 2600 guests, this is what they are having. They are having jumbo lump crab meat. Then they are having mango and baby oak salad and smoked paprika rubbed for late. I think that his stake. Along with alaskan halibut i think that is steak. Then seared alaskan halibut, and then a tapas of little desserts. That is what is being fed to 2600 guests tonight, 300 a ticket. Only journalists credentialed by the white house Correspondents Association are allowed to purchase tickets. All the celebrities, all the politicians. Everyone you see their is a guest of the correspondent association. Live coverage from the Washington Hilton Hotel watching our guests. Steve cowan is the general manager of the Washington Hilton Hotel. We talked to both of them about what goes into thinking the menu. The planning for the dinner begins a year in advance directly after the previous years dinner. We start, the week following the dinner, we have afteractionwill talk about what worked well, what we want to do slightly differently, and it begins there. Later during the year we have the associational hazard there tasting, the selection committee, they will decide on the menus two months in advance. Maybe a week out we talk about the logistics of this years dinner and how things are different from the previous year, what the focal points are then we have a preshift meeting the day the dinner for all of the teams. It is a yearlong process. We have a tasting. We had it there many years. They are very, very good to us there. They really go out of their way. Unlike what you may have read in the paper from one of our guests about rubber chicken, weve never had chicken. We actually have very, very good food. They offer three salads, three entrees, three desserts, and we pick and choose. We have a president , our incoming president , and our two outgoing Board Members every year. They are the ones that work on the food selection. Cspans live coverage of the 2015 live Correspondents Dinner. There is a person who plays a press secretary on tvs scandal. Debbie stanfield is an invited guest. Could not get a ticket even though she plays one on tv. She could not get a ticket herself. Had to go through a News Organization or get invited by a News Organization. A lot of celebrities here tonight. It has become since the 1980s, in a sense, a competition and a chance for hollywood folks to get the together with washington folks and it becomes an entire weekend. It goes through friday night. We showed you interviews from the garden brunch which nina dunn and Hillary Rosen put together. It used to be held at tammy dodds house, but it grew so big that they hold it at tammy grahams former house. People and time at a cocktail party. The new yorker has a party. Lots of post parties after this dinner. This dinner has become the centerpiece of an entire washington political celebrity weekend. If you have any comments about this type of activity, and there are a lot of comments being made on our facebook page, you can join us or like us on facebook facebook. Com cspan. You can follow us at cspan. See some of the actors being tweeted out. You can also use the hashtag whcd and see some of the comments and photos being put out by other people. This is cspans live coverage. The program itself should begin in five or 10 minutes or so. Is 8 48 p. M. Eastern time. The white house Correspondents Association dinner for this year , the speaking program will begin at about 9 30 p. M. Eastern time. We will place more interviews, show you more behindthescenes stuff, and watch the whole process live. It is 9 30ish. When the speaking portion begins, we will be live as well