Posts Tagged ‘The Daily Show’

David Litt entered the White House in 2011 and left in 2016 as a special assistant to the president and senior presidential speechwriter. Described as the “comic muse for the president,” David was the lead writer on four White House Correspondents’ Dinner presentations and has contributed jokes to President Obama’s speeches since 2009. He is currently the head writer/producer for Funny or Die’s office in Washington, DC. David has also written for The Onion, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, and the New York Times. 

“David Litt has done the impossible: written a smart, insightful, and funny White House memoir you don’t have to be a political junkie to love. Even better, he takes us back to a saner more compassionate time when our president liked to read.”—Judd Apatow

“David Litt is a natural storyteller and an absolute joy.”—Tig Notaro

“Funny and warm, David Litt knows how to make people laugh regardless of their political affiliation.”—Mike Birbiglia

More than any other presidency, Barack Obama’s eight years in the White House were defined by young people – twenty-somethings who didn’t have much experience in politics (or anything else, for that matter), yet suddenly found themselves in the most high-stakes office building on earth. David Litt was one of those twenty-somethings. After graduating from college in 2008, he went straight to the Obama campaign. 

In his refreshingly honest memoir, Litt brings us inside Obamaworld. With a humorists’ eye for detail, he describes what it’s like to accidentally trigger an international incident or nearly set a president’s hair aflame. He answers questions you never knew you had: Which White House men’s room is the classiest? What do you do when the commander in chief gets your name wrong? Where should you never, under any circumstances, change clothes on Air Force One? With nearly a decade of stories to tell, Litt makes clear that politics is completely, hopelessly absurd.   

But it’s also important. For all the moments of chaos, frustration, and yes, disillusionment, Litt remains a believer in the words that first drew him to the Obama campaign: “People who love this country can change it.” In telling his own story, Litt sheds fresh light on his former boss’s legacy. And he argues that, despite the current political climate, the politics championed by Barack Obama will outlive the presidency of Donald Trump.

Full of hilarious stories and told in a truly original voice, Thanks, Obama is an exciting debut about what it means – personally, professionally, and politically – to grow up.

Two-time Emmy-nominated actor Matt Walsh currently stars in HBO’s award-winning comedy series Veep as Mike McLintock, the sharp-witted, deadpan Director of Communications to the first female U.S. Vice President, Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Walsh earned his two Emmy nominations  in 2016 and 2017 for his role on Veep, and a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Veep in the category of Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series. 

His film credits include Office Christmas Party; Paul Feig’s re-boot of Ghostbusters; and the Zack Galifianakis and Jon Hamm film Keeping Up With the Joneses; and Brigsby Bear. His upcoming films include David Wain’s A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2017) and Melissa McCarthy’s Life of the Party (2018).

Previously, he was a correspondent for The Daily Show, starred in his Spike TV’s sports comedy Players, and appeared on HBO’s Hung, NBC’s Outsourced, NBC’s Community, ABC’s Happy Endings, Adult Swim’s Children’s Hospital, NTSF:SD:SUV::, IFC’s Comedy Bang Bang, Comedy Central’s Drunk History, and Nick Swardson’s Pretend Time. He has appeared in such features as Semi-Pro, Old School, Bad Santa, Road Trip, Elf, Role Models, Step Brothers, The Hangover, Due Date, Ted, Into the Storm, Hits, and Get Hard.

Walsh is a founding member of the famed national improv-sketch comedy theatre Upright Citizens Brigade, which has schools and venues in New York and Los Angeles.