Saturday Night Live has long been a thorn in Donald Trump’s side ever since he ran for President for the first time. From being a famous host to frequent target of jokes, Trump has seen it all.
Saturday Night Live has been making fun of Donald Trump since 1988 and ten actors have played a satirical version of him in the comedy sketch program so far. However, the real tussle between SNL and Donald Trump began when he announced that he would run for president, after which comedians started to go for his throat.
A few famous names to don the blond wig and mimic the President’s peculiar mannerisms are Hammond, Alec Baldwin, and now James Austin Johnson. Alec Baldwin, notably, played Trump from 2016 to 2020 and nailed every single one of his mannerisms. Donald Trump was so agitated by this impression that when Baldwin was caught in an involuntary manslaughter case, Trump announced it as karma for putting his name in a bad light.
Watch Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump bring chaos to the #SNL premiere https://t.co/RWKvOyJ5wm pic.twitter.com/T3A1ukYsqx
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) October 2, 2017
However, many of Trump’s posts on his own social media platform, Truth Social, have not deterred the sketch writers and actors at SNL as this past Saturday, after the Inauguration, SNL was back at it, and, one might say, back with shining colors.
The sketch took a jibe at Donald Trump’s executive orders, almost by-passing the Constitution. In the sketch, “Donald Trump” disrupts the performance of Lin Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton to announce that he wants to make a new and whitey country.
President Trump interrupts Lin-Manuel Miranda to address the nation pic.twitter.com/d7PhbxLeII
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) January 26, 2025
One may disagree with the executive orders and agenda behind them, but what one can’t refuse is Melania Trump’s absence on the Campaign Trail. All through the 2024 campaign, Mrs Trump was missing in Action, and how could the writers of SNL let go of this golden opportunity?
The SNL sketch showed Donald Trump welcoming guests for his inauguration, including Melania. The character calls his inauguration a success and says,”It was inside due to cold and fear, we had a lot of surprise guests like Melania. That was nice. Melania showed up to my inauguration dressed like, frankly, Kung Lao from Mortal Kombat.”
Kung Lao was a reference to the famous video game Mortal Kombat, which was also turned into a movie. The character of Kung Lao fights wearing a giant hat.
The joke on Melania left the internet in stitches. X users could not stop laughing and sharing the subtle call-out at Mrs. Trump’s disinterest in the president’s life.
Aside from Melania, the episode of SNL also had a joke about Barron Trump where they compare the tall teenager with Gandalf. The “Donald Trump” quips how Barron is like Gandalf and hits his head on the doorway while entering the room. This was a take on Gandalf when he tried to enter the hobbit’s house.
This was not an explicit joke in any way; however, the internet was not happy about dragging a young man into the game. Maybe SNL should have kept Barron out of the script room.
No matter how the internet took these jokes, one person who wasn’t a fan of these sketches was Donald Trump.
