For ‘Saturday Night Live,’ Trump Cold Opens Won’t Seem So Funny This Year

Donald Trump cold opens on Saturday Night Live have never been funny, despite their ubiquity over the past decade. Alec Baldwin’s hammy version was preachy and obvious, a bit that even Baldwin knew had worn out its welcome. James Austin Johnson was hired thanks to his spot-on impression, but sketches featuring his Trump have been tame and toothless, a by-the-numbers retelling of the week’s events featuring America’s weirdo Uncle Don. Viewers had to wait for Che and Jost’s Weekend Update for punchlines that actually landed. 

The best Trump sketch of the JAJ era was the one immediately after the 2024 election, in which SNL mockingly kissed the feet of the President by portraying him as Hot Jacked Trump. It was a clever, cruel way to taunt the image that Trump sees in the mirror. But it’s a visual joke, one that wouldn’t have continued to get laughs after the initial surprise.  

So from there, SNL tried to have it both ways. The show believed it was obligated to poke fun at Trump every week — every freaking week — but it pulled its punches, trotting out lazy impressions of J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller in lieu of commentary or criticism. SNL’s makeup and wig department put more effort into the sketches than the show’s writers, who were intent on being “fair to both sides.”

Enough. It’s time for SNL to take off the gloves. 

Since the last time we saw Saturday Night Live, Stephen Colbert has been fired, and Jimmy Kimmel has been suspended indefinitely. Both actions were the result of defying the administration, putting all political satirists on notice that comedy can end with the snap of FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s fingers. 

Trump, a two-time SNL host, has already called for Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon to leave the air, and “unfunny, no-talent, bad ratings” SNL is sure to be next on his list. So be it. If Lorne Michaels and crew go down, they should go down swinging.

“I truly hope SNL returns with a fire lit under its ass and a sense of nothing left to lose,” tweeted the team behind the podcast That Week in SNL. “There is no glory in bending the knee now, only unfathomable shame. There is no peaceful center to find anymore. Elbows up, fuck em up or die doing the millionth fart sketch.”

When Trump was elected in 2016, Dave Chappelle told the disillusioned SNL cast that it had to use the moment for comedy, according to Lorne: The Man Who Invented Comedy. The comic shared a quote from Toni Morrison as a rallying cry. Chappelle may need to run over to 30 Rock and preach it one more time. 

“This is precisely the time when artists go to work,” Morrison wrote. “There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”