Joy Behar Offers Biden Comedy Advice Ahead of White House Correspondents Dinner

Joy Behar came armed with tricks of the trade Friday morning as she offered President Biden advice on his comedy routine for Saturday's White House Correspondents Dinner. Though the co-hosts encouraged Biden to "do no harm" by sticking to safe topics, Behar suggested three potential punchlines for the president, courtesy of The View's resident comedy writer Frank Santopadre.

With guest co-host Jane Lynch on hand, The View opened the discussion with a run-through of topics Biden should avoid, like George W. Bush's "weapons of mass destruction" bit from 2004. "You don't joke about COVID. You don't joke about Ukraine," said Ana Navarro. "There's things that are just not jokable."

However, the ladies agreed that it's most important for Biden to be "self-deprecating" and acknowledge that he "respect[s] the freedom of the press," particularly after his predecessor spent four years attacking journalists (and refused to attend the annual event). "On the heels of being apart for so long, we always need an excuse to laugh," said Sara Haines. "I think this will showcase how great and how symbiotic the press and the government can be together."

When Sunny Hostin asked how Behar might walk this fine line, the longtime co-host read three jokes that Santopadre wrote for Biden to use in his set. "Madison Cawthorn wanted to be here, but there was a sale at Victoria's Secret," she said, to only a smattering of laughs. Behar attempted to explain the joke, saying "you have to know he was caught wearing some kind of ladies' thing," but the co-hosts encouraged her to move on.

"Let's try this next one," she continued. "Marjorie Taylor Greene wanted to attend tonight but her tinfoil hat kept setting off the metal detectors." The punchline got a few more laughs than the first, but the response was still lukewarm, prompting Behar to plunge ahead to joke number three: "America is facing some dark times, but not as dark as Tucker Carlson's testicles."

Finally, the co-hosts and the studio audience laughed, but their reaction was nothing compared to the full-table collapse that occurred after Navarro's "Brown envy" joke on Wednesday.

Sensing an opportunity, Behar then chimed in with a suggestion of her own. "He should just nod off," she said. "Like, 'Oh yeah, call me sleepy Joe?'" She then mimed Biden falling asleep onstage, earning yet another quiet round of chuckles.

With this in mind, if Biden is really going to look to The View for comedy advice (and clearly he should not), maybe he should take Navarro's bit over the Behar/Santopadre collab.

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.