“For now on we’re going to do very flattering portrayal of Trump,” announced James Austin Johnson’s Rambo bandana wearing Jack Trump, flexing his muscles in tonight’s Saturday Night Live post-election cold open. “He’s going to make an incredible president, and eventually king.”
Which means, we’re a long lomg way from a “cool new step-mamala.”
A week after Kamala Harris was on SNL riffing and cracking up with doppelganger Maya Rudolph, Donald Trump’s solid November 5 victory over the VP and return to the White House was the only thing the Lorne Michaels run show could have for its cold open.
SNL kissed the ring, bent the knee and took it way to far in the best way.
Adding to the moment, if you didn’t get it, there was a “Heil Trump” from Andrew Dismukes. The closer was a pretty great Elon Musk mocking from the maestro himself Dana Carvey, jettisoning the near perfect Joe Biden he’s been rolling out this season so far.
As you can see:
Kicking the regular cable news mock show skit to the curb, the show somberly started with cast regulars Bowen Yang, Ego Nwodin, Kenan Thompson and Heidi Gardner recounting the election results.
“On Tuesday, Americans went to the polls and elected Donald Trump to the next President of the United States,” began Yang. “To many people, including many people watching this show right now, the results were shocking and even horrifying,” added a completely straight faced Nwodin, maybe anticipating Trump would post some sort of response on social media before he got the joke.
“Donald Trump, who tried to forcibly overturn the results of the last election, was returned to office by an overwhelming majority,” said an equally nonplussed Gardner.
“This is the same Donald Trump who openly called for vengeance against his political enemies,” stated Thompson. Then it was Yang again: “Now, next to the Supreme Court, there are no guardrails.” To Nwodin: “Nothing to protect the people who are brave enough to speak out against him.”
“That is why we at SNL would like to say to Donald Trump, we have been with you all along,” piped up Thompson, as the audience uttered its first laughter of the opener. “We have never wavered in our support of you, even when others doubted you,” added a smiling Yang.
The quartet were joined in quick succession by Dimukes, Weekend Update co-host Colin Jost (who went full Jan 6 at one point), Sarah Sherman and the thrown under the bus trio of newbies. All that was missing was a bow in the direction of Jeff Bezos, if you know what I mean?
The hard humor challenged reality of Trump’s win in the electoral college and, for the first time, in the popular vote had a stronger punch Saturday with the ex-Celebrity Apprentice host sweeping all the swing states with wins in Nevada and Arizona
Tonight’s post-election hangover show sees Bill Burr back as host for the second time and multi-instrumentalist MK.gee making his debut as the musical guest.
.Next week will be one of those rare-ish double dips for SNL with Kamala Harris “Brat” signing Charli XCX as both host and musical guest for the seventh show of the late nighter’s 50th season. The November 16 show will mark the I Love It singer’s SNL debut.
