“Saturday Night Live” is looking to get on President-elect Donald Trump’s good side.
The sketch comedy show’s post-election episode kicked off with the cast delivering what initially seemed to be a serious message about the Republican nominee’s win. “To many people, including many people watching this show right now, the results were shocking and even horrifying,” Ego Nwodim said, while Kenan Thompson noted that Trump “openly called for vengeance against his political enemies.”
In light of that, the stars spent the rest of the cold open trying to stay off such a list, jokingly claiming they were always supportive of Trump and even voted for him.
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“We have been with you all along!” Thompson said. Bowen Yang claimed, “We have never wavered in our support of you,” and Marcello Hernández insisted, “Every single person on this stage voted for you!” Sarah Sherman also sarcastically described Trump as “the man I want my future children to look up to,” and Colin Jost threw his “Weekend Update” co-anchor under the bus by declaring, “I hate how the lamestream media − Michael Che − tries to spin it to make you look foolish.”
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James Austin Johnson, who plays Trump on the show, debuted a new, more favorable take on the president-elect, dubbed “hot jacked Trump.”
Donning a black tank top that showed off his muscles, Johnson said, “From now on, we’re going to do a very flattering portrayal of Trump because he’s, frankly, my hero, and he’s going to make an incredible president and, eventually, king. We love you, buddy!”
Yang joked about getting drunk on Wednesday morning after the election before Nwodim told Trump, “We can’t wait to see what you do with the country this time. I keep waking up in the middle of the night screaming. With joy, of course!”
Maya Rudolph’s Kamala Harris was nowhere to be found in the opening sketch, but after Thompson said Elon Musk can take them to Mars if anything goes south during Trump’s second term, Dana Carvey debuted his impression of the Tesla CEO. The comedian jumped around the stage like Musk did at Trump’s rallies and announced, “Seriously, I run the country now.”
Bill Burr monologue addresses Trump’s win, gets mixed reactions
Bill Burr hosted the episode and delivered a monologue that appeared to receive a muted response in the room and drew mixed reactions on social media. The comic opened with two minutes of non-political jokes before turning to “what you all want to talk about”: the election.
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“All right, ladies, you’re 0 and 2 against this guy!” he said.
Reviewing what went wrong for Democrats, Burr joked that women should stop wearing pantsuits.
“Stop trying to have respect for yourselves,” he quipped. “You don’t win the office on policy. You’ve got to whore it up a little. I’m not saying go full Hooters, but find the happy medium between Applebee’s and ‘Your dad didn’t stick around.’ You all know how to get a free drink.”
“Listen, I know a lot of ugly women − feminists, I mean − don’t want to hear this message. But just tease them a little bit. Make a farmer feel like he’s got a shot. Swing a state over a little bit.”
Burr also questioned how anyone could have been undecided given Harris and Trump were the “most polar opposite people ever” and said he “can’t believe Trump didn’t win this thing” right after he survived an assassination attempt. “When I was a kid, if you were running for president and you got shot and you didn’t die, that was the end of the election!”
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Some on social media were upset by Burr’s monologue, with one X user asking, “Who at SNL approved Bill Burr and his unfunny misogynistic monologue?” Another wrote, “Bill Burr calling feminists ‘ugly women’ on the first snl after the election has radicalized me in a level i couldn’t possibly comprehend when i thought i had been radicalized to the highest degree earlier this week.”
In YouTube comments, some Burr fans suggested it wasn’t his finest hour. “He’s my absolute favorite of all time, it was the first time I think he seemed nervous,” one comment read, while another said, “I’ve finally seen Bill bomb.” But others were more supportive, with one X post calling the monologue “one of the funniest sets I’ve seen on ‘SNL.’ “
Burr also sparked criticism with a joke about getting the flu and wondering if he caught it from “an Asian.” He followed up by saying he actually caught got it from a “shoeless cowboy on an airplane.”
Colin Jost, Michael Che joke about election results on ‘Weekend Update’: ‘He’s invincible’
Jost kicked off “Weekend Update” by joking that after Trump’s win, “We learned that Democrats actually don’t know how to rig an election.”
“It’s like we’re living in a computer simulation, and whoever’s controlling Trump has a cheat code. He’s invincible. He’s like a character in ‘Grand Theft Auto’ who throws a prostitute out of a car and drives straight to the White House. But don’t you guys worry. If I know Democrats, they’re going to take a long look in the mirror, learn from their mistakes, and then run Biden again in 2028.”
Che sipped from a cocktail glass throughout the segment as he questioned why he thought Harris even had a chance.
“How did I let y’all convince me that rural Pennsylvania would pick the Jamaican Indian lady?” he joked. “Clearly, I’ve been spending too much time with you white liberals and your goofy optimism.”
“SNL” will return next week with Charli XCX performing double duties as host and musical guest.
