As always, Saturday Night Live‘s recent episode featured a Weekend Update segment that saw the two anchors, Colin Jost and Michael Che, joking around about current events. At one point, Jost discussed how former President Donald Trump will not testify at his second impeachment trial, which is set to begin this week. Although, he didn’t exactly refer to Trump as the former president.
Jost began the joke by referring to Trump as a “former social media influencer,” which prompted so much laughter from the audience that he had to pause before continuing on with the rest of the joke. The co-anchor went on to say that the former president “will not testify at his impeachment trial next week and I think I speak for all of us when I say, ‘Come on, please?’” He continued to joke, “Give us one last show, man. You know, stop feeling sorry for yourself, put in your extensions, and burst into that trial like it’s ‘Maury Povich’ and you are not the father. Come on, think about it! You can yell out all the tweets you haven’t been allowed to post for the past month.” Just as Jost referenced with the whole “former social media influencer” title, Trump has not been allowed to post on Twitter following his ban from the site for his inflammatory language in light of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.
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While Trump frequently took to Twitter throughout his presidency to share his opinions, Twitter banned him in January following the riot that took place at the Capitol, which involved a mob of the former president’s supporters storming the building. Shortly after the riot took place, Trump posted a video on Twitter in which he called for the riot to stop. However, he also said that he loved those who took part in the riot and continued to cast aspersions on the 2020 presidential election, which Joe Biden won. As a result of his words, Twitter temporarily suspended him.
After his temporary ban was up, Trump returned to Twitter and penned a tweet in which he wrote that the people who voted for him “will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” The social media platform subsequently weighed in and decided to permanently ban the former president from the site. Their statement read, in part, “After close review of recent Tweets from the [“realDonaldTrump”] account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
