This Was the Most Brutal ‘Weekend Update’ Joke About Trump and Epstein

The ever-unfolding Epstein drama gave Michael Che and Colin Jost an embarrassment of riches to feature on Weekend Update. Saturday Night Live jumped on the news of thousands of new Epstein emails and their contents last night, including the cold open and the return of Will Forte’s classic MacGruber character. 

As usual, the Update anchors had the best opportunity to deliver Trump-heavy punchlines in the show’s sketch-centric format. Forgoing any guest appearances at the desk, the pair delivered six minutes of some of the season's best jokes.  

“The longest government shutdown in history finally ended after 43 days,” Jost started. “And you know, first day back in the office, you got to check all those piled up emails.” There was a brief pause for dramatic effect so that everyone could get on board the Epstein email train. “House Democrats released an email written by Jeffrey Epstein, in which he claims that Donald Trump quote ‘knew about the girls,’” Jost continued. “It's bombshell news that legal experts are calling: ‘Duh.’”

The back-and-forth kept escalating, but one joke topped the rest for sheer audacity. The setup involved very unfortunate imagery of current President Donald Trump and former President Bill Clinton. 

“In one of the emails, Epstein's brother asked if Vladimir Putin has a picture of Donald Trump giving oral sex to someone named Bubba, which was an old nickname for Bill Clinton,” Che said. “So I guess that's one job Trump has created. I don't know if that oral sex story is true, but I do know that image is burned in my brain, like that scene from The Shining.”

Che moves on, but it’s not the last time we get some wordplay about two of the most powerful men in the world exchanging … favors. Later in the segment, Che introduces a news story about a BBC documentary that altered Trump’s speech on January 6, implying the president incited violence at a rally preceding the storming of the Capitol. 

“President Trump is threatening to sue the BBC for $5 billion for a documentary that edited out the part of his January 6 speech where he called for protesters to be peaceful and to set the record straight,” said a gleeful Che. “Here is the full, unedited, completely accurate clip of what Trump said on that day.”

We then get an ultra-edited clip from the infamous January 6 rally that strings together the sentence: “Everybody knows I went down on Bill Clinton.”

If I were Che, I’d be keeping an eye on Trump’s Truth Social account. Those are the kinds of punchlines that will threaten an Update host's job.