NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” opened this weekend’s episode with a satirical take on President Donald Trump’s first 100 days back in the White House.
“It has been a hundred years since I became president. Excuse me, days, wow. Feels longer,” said cast member James Austin Johnson, portraying Trump in the show’s signature exaggerated style. The sketch was set in a mock Oval Office, with Trump flanked by an over-the-top version of Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, referred to as the “Lord of the Shadows.”
The scene parodied Trump’s busy start to his second term, with the fake president rapidly signing executive orders and touching on controversial issues such as the administration’s mass deportation agenda.
“I’ve also signed 147 executive orders, everything from banning paper straws to defunding PBS,” he declared. “I understand Elmo has now been apprehended by ICE, brought to you by the letter L for El Salvador. He’s not coming back.”
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The sketch aired just days after Trump celebrated the real milestone of 100 days since returning to the White House.
SNL leaned into recent pop culture headlines, with fake Trump signing a satirical order making it “socially acceptable for a man in his 70s to date a 24-year-old.” The line was a not-so-subtle reference to recent media attention surrounding former Patriots coach Bill Belichick and his much-younger girlfriend.
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“Old men can now date far younger women. We like that, it’s hot,” the impersonated Trump said. “But in reverse, it’s quite disgusting, right? Very Dateline, you know.”
Other parodied characters included a fictional Secretary of State Marco Rubio, portrayed as reluctantly pushing back on an absurd order to ban “Hispanic babies from getting their ears pierced,” a clear attempt by the writers to satirize immigration policy.
In a jab at recent economic concerns, the sketch ended with Trump renaming “recession” to “recess” in an attempt to soften the term.
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“Recession will now be called recess. Fun, right?” he quipped. “So, America, get ready for a historically long recess. I call tetherball.”
The real Trump recently dismissed recession concerns, stating Friday that the U.S. is in a “transition period” and predicting the country will “do fantastically,” despite recent volatility in the stock market.
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The cold open also touched on recent buzz surrounding Trump’s viral post on Truth Social, where he shared an AI-generated image of himself dressed as the Pope. It came just days after Trump attended the funeral for Pope Francis in Rome. When asked about the future leader of the Catholic Church, the president joked he’d be his own “number one choice.”
“It’s me, your favorite president, perhaps your next pope,” Johnson’s Trump said, combining ambition for both the Oval Office and the Vatican.
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