Saturday Night Live didn’t wait long to take a swing at the chaos unfolding outside Trump Tower and the even stranger decisions coming out of the White House. Hours after protesters flooded the streets with “No Kings” signs, SNL brought back James Austin Johnson’s eerily accurate Trump impersonation for a cold open that hit nearly every bizarre note of the week.
The sketch framed Trump’s appearance as a surprise drop-in on a teen-run podcast called Snack Homiez, hosted by Sabrina Carpenter (pulling double duty as host and musical guest), along with cast members Chloe Fineman, Jane Wickline, and Veronika Slowikowska. The kids are there to debate Halloween candy and “goated vegetables,” but Trump crashes the conversation, hijacking the pod the same way he hijacks press conferences.
The real Trump, of course, spent the week dismissing nationwide protests and even shared a grotesquely tone-deaf AI-generated video of himself bombing demonstrators. But in SNL’s world, he’s spinning the narrative the other way.
“You know who I do like?” Trump says. “George Santos. He’s weird. He’s a liar.”
Yes, you heard that right. In the sketch, Trump frames the protests as celebrations of his shocking commutation of Santos’ sentence. The disgraced congressman had been serving seven years for defrauding donors and lying to pretty much everyone, but Trump’s SNL alter ego didn’t seem to care.
“The people are marching because they’re happy he’s free,” he says. “It’s a ‘Yes, King’ march. They’re saying, ‘Yes, King.’”
That tone-deaf misread of the protests mirrors how the actual Trump has routinely rebranded outrage as support—because in his world, any attention is good attention.
SNL’s Trump also goes on a delusional bragging spree about ending wars: “You look at China, you look at Korea — I’ve solved like seven wars at this point,” he says. “No one gives me credit. It’s like 100 wars I’ve solved.”
Not exactly the foreign policy flex he thinks it is—especially as he continues to drag his feet on supporting Ukraine in the real world. In a particularly head-spinning twist, the SNL Trump even praises Zelensky as “tough,” while the real version has repeatedly balked at sending aid.
Then came the punchline to end all punchlines: Trump’s existential fear of eternal damnation.
“Am I going to heaven, chat?” he asks the young podcasters, turning the microphone into a confessional booth. “Do I fit the criteria in terms of Christian and with regard to St. Peter and pearly gates?”
There’s an awkward pause before Fineman’s character delivers a half-hearted, “Um, I don’t know, sir.”
Trump doesn’t miss a beat: “Probably not, right?” he answers himself. Then, like a dark cherry on top of a scandal sundae, he drops the word: “Epstein.”
Later on Weekend Update, Colin Jost put it bluntly: “He’s far too busy here, running hell.”
Not exactly what you’d call subtle political commentary, but in a week like this one, maybe subtlety is overrated.
If SNL’s goal was to skewer the absurdity of a week where a president commuted the sentence of a serial fabulist while also questioning his chances of making it to heaven—mission accomplished.
Watch the clips below:
