“Let’s say, if I had a drink for every Venezuelan we’ve killed, I’d really like that number of drinks,” said Donald Trump’s fog of warred Secretary of Defense/War tonight in Saturday Night Live’s unusually high temperature cold open.
In a cabinet full of jokes, Pete Hegseth is one of the true zingers – as SNL proved tonight with a sleeping Trump (James Austin Johnson) even waking up to join in the fun. For one thing, along with Johnson’s classic Trump and a Pentagon a rare non-Weekend Update role by Colin Jost is always a treat as the chest beating former Fox host.
“We love Pete,” Johnson’s spot on Trump proclaimed as he was questioned about Hegseth being pink slipped ASAP.
Johnson’s Trump beign Trump,. the former NBC reality show host just couldn’t stop there.
Making it worse for Hegseth, who was proved totally unqualified for his job, SNL’s Trump said the quiet thing aloud: “He’s a great guy. He’s just fog of war, right? Fog of war, it’s a thing you only say after doing war crime, right? You never hear a general go. Everything went according to plan in fog of war. It’s like when you go into the sauna at Equinox and suddenly you’re doing stuff you never did before. Fog of War. We love it. It’s a great new excuse. We love it. So I stand by Pete, and nothing can change my mind less. Of course, it could hurt me in any way, in which case, I’ll throw him under one of Mamdani’s free buses.”
For another thing, tonight’s short and sweet cold open was both topical and well-written. So, with a quick quip about Netflix’s $83 billion acquisition of Warner Bros this week, the zingers landed almost with the force of US military hardware against boats and alleged drug dealing sailors off the coast of the oil-rich South American nation.
“That kind of cruel, heartless act has no place in Operation Kill Everybody,” Jost’s Hegseth bellowed when questioned about the questionable claim he ordered the Navy to kill Venezuelans in the sea.
The semi-fictional Hegseth added: “Second. I wasn’t in the room when it happened. Okay? I was so jacked up after the first strike I had to make an emergency call to my sponsor, I’m sorry, a guy in an Anonymous meeting. So, I don’t drink something that I like and I want but I can’t have, but I want it, and I need it and I want it right now. It’s booze.
Back for the first time since November 16, Saturday Night Live had a lot of strong options for tonight’s cold open – many of which obviously came from Trump and the MAGA minions like Hegseth. Just in the last five days, POTUS dozing off at his sycophant full cabinet meeting, POTUS at the FIFA 2026 World Cup draw on December 5 getting a dollar store Peace Prize the international soccer organization willed into life and then there was today’s plain cringey and Jimmy Kimmel infused Oval Office meet and creep with this year’s Kennedy Center honorees.
Of course, on a coarser than usual spree for the sexual abuse convicted POTUS, Trump’s repeated verbal attacks on female journalists the past month, including calling CNN’s GOP friendly Kaitlan Collins “stupid and nasty,” this morning, certainly lend themselves to satire and scrutiny.
Coming off the White House’s ongoing trolling of last week’s host Sabrina Carpenter, tonight’s SNL finds Melissa McCarthy back as host for the sixth time. Dijon is the musical guest tonight for the 995th SNL ever a.k.a. the seventh show of the 51st Season
First having hosted in the far off era of 2011, the Bridesmaid actress’ 2017 appearance cemented her legacy in political comedy as then odious White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Winning an Emmy for her portrayal of the quick to anger GOP hack, McCarthy actually played Spicer several times on SNL in a non-hosting capacity, including once live from LA because she was out West for East 2017.
Will Heath/NBC
Honestly, I thought a Spicer cameo in the cold open was a given with McCarthy in the house. Good to be wrong here as the actual cold open was so tight, it didn’t need the throwback element.
Heading into the holidays and New Year’s, there are two more SNLs to go for 2025. Wake Up Dead Man’s Josh O’Conner hosts next week, with fellow Brit Lily Allen as the musical guest. December 20 see’s Wicked good witch Ariana Grande return to fronting the NBC later nightery, with legend Cher providing the tunes, and likely some special guests.