‘SNL’ Cold Open Skewers Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz

The Saturday Night Live cold open went back to pure politics, skewering Fox News’ coverage of former President Donald Trump‘s second impeachment trial. Despite seven Republican Senators joining 50 Democrats, Trump was still acquitted on charges of inciting the Jan. 6 riot. As a result, last night’s SNL showed how Fox News host Tucker Carlson (Alex Moffatt) covering the news. The sketch featured hilarious performances by Kate McKinnon as Sen. Lindsey Graham and Aidy Bryant as Sen. Ted Cruz.

During one segment of the sketch, Carlson asked Graham and Cruz how they pulled off this victory for Trump, despite the performance of Trump’s legal team. “Like any impartial juror, we took it upon ourselves to meet with the defense lawyers, to give them some very simple legal advice: ‘Stop’ and ‘Don’t,’” Cruz said.

Later, SNL parodied Trump’s lawyers, Bruce Castor (Mickey Day) and Michael Van Der Veen (Pete Davidson). Davidson’s performance made fun of Van Der Deen’s Philadelphia accent and his inability to say Vice President Kamala Harris’ name correctly. He then introduced a clip of Democrats and movie characters say the word “fight.” This led to Carlson introducing Sen. Mitch McConnell (Beck Bennett), who had to explain why he still voted to acquit Trump even though he later said Trump was responsible for the riot.

Last week, Saturday Night Live turned away from doing an overtly political parody for its cold open. Instead, the show parodied Super Bowl LV pre-game coverage, as the show aired hours before the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the NFL championship game. The segment was structured as an episode of CBS’ NFL Today show, with Kenan Thompson playing host James Brown. One of the highlights from the segment was Aidy Bryant playing both Chiefs coach Andy Reid and Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians, a reference to how similar the two coaches look.

The sketch did include some references to politics. The SNL writers parodied how “progressive” some ads were with a commercial touting equality that turned out to be for Cheez-Its. This was followed by a conservative commercial for Papa John’s, where they “know you want real ingredients, no additives, no preservatives, and no child sex trafficking in the basement.” The ad also included a reference to the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory, asking customers to bring “Q-pons” for discounts.

This week’s SNL was hosted by Regina King with Nathaniel Ratteliff as the musical guest. It was the third consecutive new SNL episode of the year. Episodes air at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC Saturdays.