welcome back, everyone. i m don lemon, to our special coverage of the white house correspondents dinner. i m joined tonight by our political editor mr. mark preston, will help guide us through. hey listen i get to hang out with mark preston and the guy gets to hang out with the president so i think that i m just as lucky. i think that you re the winner. you think that i m the winner i don t been that. let s answer our trivia question here that mark asked before the break. the 1987 cnn thes dinner the guests there. tell us what you asked before? who did why is this dinner such a big hollywood elite gathering? it was all brought on in 1987 when the late-michael kelly, a reporter for the baltimore sun brought this woman to the dinner. and this is what, jason risen wrote, he said take wes camera. there you go, jason, thank you
complex. we ll continue to in story as we get more information and we re also watching the threat of tornados, don. look at all of this firing up in southern arkansas at this time. there are numerous tornado warnings in affect. nothing officially on the ground but if you hear those sirens go off, this is a particularly high-risk night, don, we will likely see those large, long-track tornados which will stay on the ground tonight. jacqui, thank you very much. jacqui, standby, i will read this as we thank jacqui. look this is from twitter. someone says that was annex building move from the current in the water? if so that s amazing. i wish everyone luck in nashville. we certainly do yes it was from the current. our jacqui jeras just reported a little bit. jacqui s going to stand by. she ll update us on the weather system in just a minute. meantime we ll continue with our coverage of the white house correspondents dinner. we re live here on cnn. we re having a lot of fun as a matte
with fawn hall. r.j. johnson los angeles, california. you weren t the first but i put you on there because you tweet me a lot. good or bad. sometimes you re very critical but i appreciate that. i like that. listen i m in okay, i m okay with the dinner. none of those people will actually do the work. they re talking down in new orleans. but again, on and on, thank you so much for your tweets. we are really having a good time here and we re keeping our eye on some very serious news. we showed you the former president, former president bill clinton earlier and then there is george w. bush. sometimes funny when he wasn t even trying to be funny. so how about when he was trying. isn t that one of the signs of the apocalypse? which raised me to dick, for eight years as vice president, dick has ridden shotgun. mark, i could see that on the daley show. which brings me to dick.
more than a dozen of them. it looks like it expands farther than that but that s what our sources are telling us right now, that at least that many vehicles have been stranded. look at those semis and that annex moving like that you can just see how powerful that water is. ah, jacqui, thank you. jacqui, please standby because we want to update our viewers that, jacqui and also, jacqui, stand by and watch a little bit of white house correspondents dinner. jacqui will keep her eye on the weather and also one on the white house correspondents dinner as well. and we want you to stay here with us at cnn. we re going to cover the serious news and we re going to have a little fun tonight because the white house correspondents dinner is going on. a little tongue in cheek with the president and also the paid entertainment tonight, jay leno. i wonder if he will say anything about conan o brien. i could see it live here on cnn, just saying.
dinner and guess who broke the mold? we have a person of the person who broke the hold. mary ann thomas, don. back in 1962 she put up such a stink. they were not allowed to attend the dinner. wo do we have on tonight our own kate balduan on the red wart. joy behar was there. not until 1962 women were allowed to attend. come a long way, baby. and that s good. helen thomas very controversial figure and also one an american icon. no question. an iconic journalist right here in this country. okay, so we re going to move on here. we heard from former first lady laura bush, and i want to testimony you that when i want to tell you that when the president is at the podium he s at the dig of an adversary. michael steele is in the house tonight. or as he would say, in the heezie.