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Saturday Night Live has aired its first episode since the election, and its castmates addressed Donald Trump’s shocking presidential victory as hilariously as you’d expect.
The episode begins with a cold open that strikes a somber tone. Ego Nwodim addressed the results of Election Day by describing them as “shocking and even horrifying,” while Heidi Gardner reminded us of Trump’s involvement in the January 6 insurrection. For his part, Bowen Yang lamented how the president-elect’s second term will come with “no guardrails,” and Keenan Thompson noted how Trump has “openly called for vengeance against his political enemies.”
Since this is SNL, it wasn’t long before the tone became comedic, as the castmates did their best to avoid becoming an aforementioned enemy by sarcastically declaring their long-running support of Trump. In a masterclass in false flattery, the comedians said on behalf of SNL that they’ve “been with [Trump] all along.” Yang added ironically that he was “so excited for Trump 2.0,” while Marcello Hernández also tried to get on the former president’s good side by declaring that “every single person on this stage voted for you.”
In perhaps the shrewdest example of flattery, Sarah Sherman sarcastically described Trump as “the man I want my future children to look up to.” Of course, anyone who watches SNL will know that the cast didn’t support Trump during his most recent bid for the White House, and would regularly ridicule the Republican candidate chiefly through Michael Che and Colin Jost of the Weekend Update section but also through James Austin Johnson’s uncanny impersonation. Johnson was one of multiple SNL comedians to whip out a political impression in the most recent episode, with Dana Carvey delivering his version of the president-elect’s new bestie, Elon Musk.
Sadly, Maya Rudolph’s Kamala Harris was nowhere to be seen, but we will always have that pre-election SNL appearance the pair made when we all still thought there was hope in this world. In a joke that would be funny if it weren’t also terrifying, Carvey’s Musk declared that he “run[s] the country now,” before heading offstage wearing a black MAGA hat and chanting “USA! USA!”. Regardless of the terrifying implications of their jokes, the SNL cast received widespread praise:
“This was so good lmao they ate that,” one fan wrote on X, with another adding that “they cooked with this.” Elsewhere, one fan was particularly impressed with SNL’s daring approach to addressing Trump’s election win. “The SNL cast’s take on Trump’s victory was both bold and humorous,” they wrote, “they never shy away from addressing current events.” The sketch comedy show has been so daring, in fact, that it has actually prompted a response from the Oompa Loompa who they most frequently lampoon.
“They copied my routine,” Trump said last month about SNL’s Rudolph-Harris skit. “I did it a long time ago.” It’s always promising when the soon-to-be president is whining about being supposedly plagiarised on TV. It’s about as promising as everything outlined in Project 2025. Here’s hoping that sarcastic quip keeps me off Trump’s enemies list, even though his only real enemy is the makeup artist who insists on making him resemble a traffic cone.