Ice Cube Lashes out at ‘SNL’ for Joke About His Donald Trump Endorsement

Ice Cube is calling out Saturday Night Live for “trying to reduce me to greed” after the late-night sketch comedy series took aim at the rapper and his apparent support for President Donald Trump. The sketch came after the actor and rapper received backlash for collaborating with the president’s administration on Trump’s “Platinum Plan” for the Black community.

In the cold open, Jim Carrey’s Joe Biden, seen in a Halloween-decorated living room, reads Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, updated for the 2020 election, and is visited by Kate McKinnon’s Hilary Clinton as they caution Democrats not to get complacent ahead of Election Day even if Biden is ahead in the polls. Urging the American people not to re-elect Trump, Carrey’s Biden noted that Ice Cube and Lil Wayne are. With a crack of lightning, the two rappers, portrayed respectively by Kenan Thompson and Chris Redd, appear wearing MAGA hats.

After Carrey asks “Why in the name of all that is holy would you be voting for Trump?” the Thomspon and Redd reply in unison, “Taxes!” The Democratic presidential nominee has proposed a tax plan that would increase the tax on individuals earning more than $400,000 a year from 37% to 39.6%, the same rate in place before Trump took office. There is also a Social Security payroll tax surcharge of 12.4% for incomes over $400,000, half of which employers pay.

“Plus, Trump’s got a new Platinum Plan,” Redd’s Ice Cube added. “That’s right. If you got a platinum record, you can plan on him doing a photo op with you.”

Ice Cube has faced a wave of backlash in recent weeks over his apparent support of the president. That backlash was first prompted in late September after he indicated that he would be willing to vote for Trump if he could come around on some of the issues that he felt neither side was addressing, namely issues impacting Black Americans. That backlash gained momentum in October after Katrina Pierson, a senior advisor for Trump, indicated in a tweet that Ice Cube collaborated with the president’s administration on a plan to address the financial concerns within the Black community.

The rapper has since pushed back against the criticism. Speaking with Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace last week, he said that he’s “not playing no more of these political games. I’m going to whoever’s in power and I’m going to speak to them about our problems.”