Watching Trump’s SNL Episode a Year Later Is the Ultimate Satire
In a recent interview with Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today, Donald Trump addressed his ongoing feud with Saturday Night Live and Alec Baldwin’s “mean-spirited” impression of him. “I hosted SNL when it was a good show,” the president-elect said in the phone interview. “But it’s not a good show anymore.”
Strangely enough, Trump hosted Saturday Night Live a year to the day before he would win the United States Presidential Election (November 7, 2015 versus November 8, 2016). At the time, critics were not kind to this episode. Paste’s SNL critic Chris White wrote: “Every sketch Donald Trump appears in, with one exception (“Hotline Bling Parody”), seems not fully realized, ill-formed, or awkwardly played. Clearly the elephant in the room (pun intended) is Trump himself, and the general confusion about what his personal intentions are.”
But if you watch the November 7, 2015 Trump/Sia episode a year later, for as eerie and devastating as it is, this 90 minutes of television is also darkly hilarious.
The opening sketch is probably the most honestly funny moment of the episode, a parody of the MSNBC Democratic Candidates Forum hosted by Rachel Maddow, who’s portrayed by Cecily Strong (“We’ll be cutting to very tight shots of black people in the audience”). But as soon as Larry David as Bernie Sanders utters “Live from New York. . . ehhhh you get it,” that’s where this traditional episode ends and quickly turns into the Donald Trump Power Hour. Even SNL announcer Darrell Hammond’s growly pronunciation of “Donald Trump” in the opening credit sequence seems like a forced joke, like, “Yeah, we really have him on the show.”
And then Trump finally appears on stage in the opening monologue, doing all of the schtick he used to do as the bombastic Apprentice host, but now as a Republican presidential candidate. In some respects, this may be the last time we ever see him as just a reality show jerk. “People think I’m controversial,” he says to the audience, “but the truth is I’m a nice guy. I don’t hold grudges against anybody.” With respect to Halle Berry’s Oscar speech, this moment is truly so much bigger than him, the irony that he’s saying this on the stage of a show he would a year later call to be canceled because of a “not very good” impression of himself. “Part of the reason I’m here is because I know how to take a joke,” he continues, before bringing out not one, but two cast members (Taran Killam and Darrell Hammond) doing impressions of him.
Post-monologue, the first Trump sketch may initially cause the hairs on your neck to build a wall of cringe (that we’re all paying for today). “Well, Mr. President, you did it,” says Bobby Moynihan. “Halfway into your first term and prosperity is at an all-time high. You’ve truly made America great again.” And then Trump proceeds to go around and ask each cast/cabinet member (including Sasheer Zamata as Omarosa) how everything’s going in America, and it’s all sunshine and gumdrops, with some quiet digs (“Everyone loves the new laws you just tweeted”). Secretary of Interior Ivanka Trump makes a walk-on, the President of Mexico (Beck Bennett) brings the check for the wall, and Taran Killam laments that the American people are simply sick of winning. At the time, this sketch appeared to be a Trump dream sequence; a year later, it’s become one for Trump supporters.