Watch Alec Baldwin’s Trump Sing “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen
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The cold open for Saturday Night Live’s 42nd season finale was actually a callback to a bit from SNL’s first episode following November’s contentious election. In that sketch, Kate McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton played the piano and sang a surprisingly intimate rendition of the then-recently deceased Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” as a farewell to both Cohen and Clinton.
For the season finale, Alec Baldwin’s Trump sings the song along with virtually every other memorable SNL character from the Trump administration, including: McKinnon’s Kellyanne Conway, Beck Bennett’s Mike Pence, Aidy Bryant’s Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Steve Bannon (hilariously portrayed as the Grim Reaper) and, finally, an unexpected return from Scarlett Johansson reprising Ivanka Trump. It’s a funny and surprisingly poignant callback to a time when America was nervously anticipating an uncertain future and needed a sort of catharsis from such an emotional and trying week.