Benny Drama brings his popular character, Kooper, a Gen Z intern, to the White House in the short video.
The Joe Biden administration is now finding innovative ways to encourage people to get vaccinated and has collaborated with comedian Benny Drama. He features as a White House intern, Kooper, in a video sketch that's going viral on Instagram. The comedian is known for his characters including gum-chewing Jenni and a spot-on Kris Jenner impression, reported Vogue. Benny Skinner, who goes by his stage name Benny Drama, brought one of his popular characters to the White House — Kooper, a Gen Z intern who is both enthusiastic and chaotic at the same time.
'Kooper at the White House' has already garnered 1.2 million views. The video shows Kooper working as an assistant to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who also makes multiple appearances during the video. Kooper can be seen wearing a shorts suit and walking around the White House. He can be seen at his desk, making calls and coffee. He starts off the video by telling someone on the phone that "Democracy's calling." The video features snippets of a 'day in the life of Kooper' as a White House intern and shows him popping in to say 'Hi' to POTUS and passing Joe Biden in the hallway. "We did it, Joe," he appears to tell the President.
He can be seen performing a variety of tasks and at one point, tells Press Secretary Jen Psaki he's booked a nail appointment for her. She replies that she didn't ask for one, only for Kooper to reply, "It's called initiative." He can be seen texting, as Psaki notes, "We’ve come a long way in our fight against this virus. We’ve vaccinated 160 million Americans." Paski asks him if he's noting down what she's saying, and he points to his head and says, "Don't worry, it's all here." He can also be seen telling someone on the phone that “We need to get shots in the arms of every single American.” He also references popstar Olivia Rodrigo's visit to the White House, asking Psaki if Olivia is still there at the White House.
"Let’s keep ourselves, families, and communities safe, WE DID IT, JOE! 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 And thank you to Jen Psaki for being the best girl boss in the world ❤️," Benny Drama captioned the video. He also clarified that they were not masked in the video as it was filmed prior to new CDC mask guidelines. In a separate post, Benny Drama wrote, "Thank you again to the White House for having me and to Jen Psaki for the ICONIC cameo!!! It was an honor to be a part of this initiative to get young people vaccinated and I hope Koop made you proud ❤️," wrote Drama, before addressing some of the hate in the comments of the original video. "To any queer people who follow me and saw some of the deeply homophobic and hateful comments yesterday, I want you to know that I received thousands more of love and support. These sketches have made me love myself and it is a privilege to try to use them to help others. If you haven’t been vaccinated yet, I hope you will reconsider," concluded Psaki.
Many conservatives and Republicans had issues with the video and Drama responded to them. "For all the republicans asking, I did not get paid to make this video. I was asked to come to DC and I was honored to do it." Former President's son, Donald Trump Jr. also slammed the video, tweeting: “Next, they’re going to waterboard you till you get vaccinated, though there’s no way that would be worse than watching this!!!”
The Joe Biden administration invited Rodrigo to speak at a press briefing to connect with younger people and to encourage them to get the vaccine. "It’s important to have conversations with friends and family members, including all communities, to get vaccinated and actually get to a vaccination site, which you can do more easily than ever before given how many sites we have and how easy it is to find them at vaccines.gov," Rodrigo told reporters during her visit on July 14, reported New York Post.
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