{"id":202863,"date":"2025-10-05T05:56:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T05:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/202863\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T05:56:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T05:56:06","slug":"snl-cold-open-skewers-trumps-late-night-tv-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/202863\/","title":{"rendered":"‘SNL’ Cold Open Skewers Trump’s Late-Night TV Crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSaturday Night Live<\/a> opened its 51st season with a skit skewering Donald Trump<\/a>\u2018s crackdown on late-night TV, as the president (James Austin Johnson) warned that \u201cdaddy\u2019s watching.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe skit also featured Mikey Day as FCC chairman Brendan Carr, who last month came to national prominence after he warned of agency action over comments that Jimmy Kimmel made on his ABC show. Hours later, ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! <\/a>from the schedule, only to return it several days<\/a> later after a backlash that the network had capitulated to Trump administration pressure.<\/p>\n

\n\tTonight\u2019s SNL<\/a> skit was hardly surprising, given that Carr, in his first weeks in office, is investigating a complaint over the show\u2019s decision last year to feature Kamala Harris in a cameo just a few days before the election.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn SNL, Johnson\u2019s Trump said, \u201cI\u2019m just here keeping my eye on SNL, making sure they don\u2019t do anything too mean about me, and they better be careful, because I know late-night TV like the back of my hand.\u201d He then held it up, showing the strange discoloring that has never been explained.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNot looking great right now,\u201d Trump said. \u201cGonna cover this up for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe premise of the SNL cold open was a spoof on Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth<\/a> (Colin Jost) summoning of generals this week to Quantico, VA, where they heard him speak on the warrior ethos \u2014 and an obsession with the appearance of Pentagon personnel.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn summary, this is the whole meeting: No fuggos, no fatties, no facial hair, no body hair \u2014 just hot shredded, hairless men who are definitely not gay,\u201d Jost\u2019s Hegseth, in a tight-fitting suit, said.<\/p>\n

\n\tHegseth\u2019s speech was followed by remarks from Trump, a blatantly partisan address that veered from topic to topic while the generals largely remained stonefaced. As Jost froze in character, Johnson\u2019s Trump broke the fourth wall and did a bit of riffing on the Weekend Update co-host.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m surprised Colin\u2019s here,\u201d Johnson\u2019s Trump said. \u201cI thought he would be with his friends at the Riyadh Comedy Festival.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThen Jost interjected, \u201cI didn\u2019t get an offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWell, that\u2019s sad. We like the Saudis because they like to saw deez journalists in half,\u201d Trump said. The line earned some groans in the audience.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe point of Trump\u2019s appearance appeared to be to play catch-up on some of what was missed over the summer, not just his attacks on late-night TV but also his claims to have ended wars while started new conflicts with Venezuela.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey all say to me, \u2018Sir, how will you pay for all of this?\u2019 And I tell them, with my scams! My beautiful scams!\u201d Johnson\u2019s Trump said.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn finishing up, Trump said, \u201cWell, here we go, and remember, daddy\u2019s watching.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCheck out the sketch above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday Night Live opened its 51st season with a skit skewering Donald Trump\u2018s crackdown on late-night TV, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[12,5109,88,1572,12015,116744,12016],"class_list":{"0":"post-202863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-electionline","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-pete-hegseth","12":"tag-saturday-night-live","13":"tag-saturday-night-live-cold-open","14":"tag-snl"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}