{"id":886460,"date":"2026-10-18T09:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T09:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/886460\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T09:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T09:16:10","slug":"james-austin-johnson-brings-his-trump-to-snl-uk-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/886460\/","title":{"rendered":"James Austin Johnson Brings His Trump to SNL UK\u2014Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

It may be a dark week for Saturday Night Live<\/a>, but there\u2019s no rest for its Trump impressionist of record.<\/p>\n

James Austin Johnson<\/a> popped up on this weekend\u2019s Saturday Night Live UK<\/a>, bringing his Donald Trump<\/a> across the Atlantic for a special appearance on the British edition of the sketch show.<\/p>\n

Johnson popped up in the show\u2019s cold open, which began with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (Freddie Meredith<\/a>) meeting British Prime Minister Andy Burnham (George Fouracres<\/a>) at Downing Street, only for Johnson\u2019s Trump to interrupt the proceedings and quickly take over the sketch.<\/p>\n

The setup was a riff on the real-life meeting between Zelenskyy and Burnham on Wednesday, where the two discussed the war in Ukraine and efforts to repair diplomatic ties between Ukraine and the United States.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s Trump arrived just as Burnham promised Zelenskyy he would raise his concerns with the president. \u201cDid somebody say Richard E. Grant?\u201d Trump asked before proposing a \u201cJob Swap\u201d in which he would take over the UK and Burnham would inherit the United States. \u201cI tell you, that place is a real mess,\u201d he warned. \u201cYou\u2019re gonna hate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, Johnson rattled through riffs on small boats, Manchester City, and Percy Pigs before turning his attention to the show he was appearing on. \u201cSNL UK, you\u2019re telling me you don\u2019t have a guy, the whole cast, you don\u2019t have one guy who can play Trump?\u201d he asked. \u201cWhat an awful situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also discovered one advantage of doing the impression on British television. After cursing as part of the sketch, Johnson-as-Trump stopped to savor the moment. \u201cOoh, you can say \u2018shit\u2019 on this one,\u201d he said. \u201cThat felt really good. Very weird. I feel really weird.\u201d<\/p>\n

A source tells LateNighter that Johnson made a brief second appearance as Trump at dress rehearsal\u2014this time dressed in golf attire\u2014at the end of the Michael Jackson fashion-show set sketch. The air version of that sketch excised Johnson\u2019s cameo.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s visit marks the franchise\u2019s first-ever U.S.-U.K. current cast crossover. He was preceded by two SNL alums: Tina Fey hosted the series premiere<\/a>, while Jimmy Fallon dropped by Weekend Update<\/a> during the show\u2019s first season.<\/p>\n

Johnson debuted his version of Trump in the Season 47 premiere in October 2021, shortly after joining the cast as a featured player. His rambling, free-associative take on Trump quickly became one of the show\u2019s most frequently deployed political impressions.<\/p>\n

Though nearly a dozen performers have portrayed Trump on SNL over the years\u2014from Phil Hartman<\/a> and Darrell Hammond<\/a> to Alec Baldwin<\/a>\u2014no one has done it more often than Johnson. His 55 appearances on SNL proper put him eight ahead of Baldwin\u2019s 47.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a safe bet Johnson\u2019s Trump will be back on the SNL mothership when the show returns for its next live episode two weeks from tonight\u2014Oct. 31\u2014with host Inde Navarrette and musical guest Gracie Abrams.<\/p>\n

Watch SNL UK\u2018s full Trump cold open at the top of this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It may be a dark week for Saturday Night Live, but there\u2019s no rest for its Trump impressionist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[216767,12,88,371786,241429,76416,12015,241000,92,40477],"class_list":["post-886460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-andy-burnham","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-freddie-meredith","tag-george-fouracres","tag-james-austin-johnson","tag-saturday-night-live","tag-saturday-night-live-uk","tag-tv","tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886460","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=886460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}