By Ryan Schwach<\/p>\n
Two Queens men had their somewhat unlikely friendship spoofed on Saturday Night Live during the comedy sketch show\u2019s season premiere over the weekend.<\/p>\n
The show\u2019s cold open joked about the relationship between Mayor Zohran Mamdani and President Donald Trump, who met at Gracie Mansion last week ahead of Trump\u2019s appearance at the United Nations. <\/p>\n
The sketch highlighted both men\u2019s Queens backgrounds \u2013 albeit incorrectly \u2013 and also mentioned their ambitious plan to build housing on top of Sunnyside Yard. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I\u2019m with you, I’m just firing on all cylinders,\u201d said James Austin Johnson as Trump, gushing about his \u201cbest friend\u201d Mamdani. <\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe it’s because we’re both from Queens,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
\u201cIsn’t it funny to think I could have grown up in one of your apartment buildings in Queens?\u201d responded SNL\u2019s Mamdani, played by Queens-born comedian Ramy Youssef. <\/p>\n
\u201cNot with that last name,\u201d said Austin Johnson. <\/p>\n
Unlike Trump, Mamdani did not grow up in Queens. <\/p>\n
He moved to the borough later in life, and represented Astoria as a state assemblymember for four years before becoming mayor. <\/p>\n
Trump was raised in Jamaica Estates and inherited his father\u2019s real estate business that had a notorious reputation for not renting to people of color. <\/p>\n
The sketch, which also included an appearance from Ashley Padilla as Trump staffer and close confidant Natalie Harp, came a week after Trump spoke complimentarily about the Democratic Socialist mayor.<\/p>\n
Following their Gracie Mansion meeting, Trump and Mamdani announced they had held advanced discussions about building 12,000 homes at Sunnyside Yard in Queens.<\/p>\n
At the end of the sketch, Youssef\u2019s Mamdani told Austin Johnson\u2019s Trump he\u2019d let him brave the weekend\u2019s storm with him at Gracie Mansion if he gave him the $21 billion for the housing project. <\/p>\n
\u201cAre you out of your mind?\u201d the lampooned president responded. <\/p>\n
Trump then agreed to pay for the housing, but only if Mamdani followed him back on Instagram. <\/p>\n
On Monday, Mamdani was asked about his portrayal on SNL. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it’s always something to be celebrated if the fact of our focus of $21 billion to create 12,000 new homes in Sunnyside Yard is given a national audience as it was,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think Ramy does a great job.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ryan Schwach Two Queens men had their somewhat unlikely friendship spoofed on Saturday Night Live during the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":359406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-359405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}