Saturday Night Live returned from its winter break last night, and Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che made up for lost time.
The comedic pair opened their segment with a blitz of takedowns directed at President Donald Trump. The main topic of discussion was the government shutdown, which has last for the past 29 days.
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“Well, guys, we were off for a month, but conveniently, so was the government,” Jost said at the top of the segment.
Jost then mocked Trump’s fast food feast he bought for the Clemson University Tigers football team, who dined at the White House after winning the 2019 College Football Playoff National Championship.
“President Trump, the man who said he would own the shutdown, clearly does not care about the people who are working unpaid, who can’t afford basic things like food,” the SNL personality said. “But why would he care? He’s a billionaire who controls all the hamburgers in the world.”
Jost and Che then pivoted to a fresh topic, the speech Trump gave just hours before the show aired. In his speech, the POTUS offered unspecified protections for the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act) in exchange for $5.7 billion in border wall funding.
“Then after Scrooge McDonald’s was done hosting his burger orgy, he went on television today with a new proposal to end the shutdown, and that proposal was basically, ‘You give me $5.7 billion, and I’ll give you back the dreamers,’” Jost said. “Am I the only one who thinks that sounds like a hostage negotiation? I can’t wait to see his written proposal.”
A graphic then appeared onscreen that showed a hostage note with the message “Give me wall or bye bye dreamers” pasted on it. Jost then compared his trust of the POTUS that of disgraced R&B singer R. Kelly, who has been accused of sexual misconduct with minors, among other crimes.
“And by the way, these ‘protections’ he’s offering aren’t even real laws,” Jost said. “They’re just vague promises he’s making. I trust a promise from Donald Trump about as much as I trust R. Kelly in a Claire’s boutique.”
It was then Che’s turn to skewer the Commander-in-Chief, and he did not hold back. He insulted the tone of Trump’s speech, the proposed slatted border wall design and the executive branch’s perceived lack of respect for furloughed government workers.
“That speech sucked. First of all, he didn’t even say ‘Hi.’ He just stated talking like we was already talking. I found that to be rude,” Che said. “Then he said he’s gonna stop half the crime and 90 percent of the heroin with something called slats, which as you can see is a wall without all the wall. Hear that, Mexico? Good luck trying to crack this code. What are you gonna do? Pass your drugs and small children through those giant slats?”
He continued, “Imagine you’re a Coast Guard or TSA or any of the thousands of government workers who are actually stopping drugs and crime from getting into this country and you haven’t been paid in a month, and the president gets on TV, doesn’t say ‘Sorry,’ doesn’t even say ‘Hi,’ but instead is like, ‘What y’all think about slats?’”
The White House has not reacted to the Weekend Update segment as of press time.
Saturday Night Live airs weekly at 11:30 ET on NBC.
Photo Credit: Will Heath/NBC
