Though Saturday Night Live’s political bits—and really, most of their sketches—have been terribly lame for months, including its recent cold open featuring Leslie Jones’ Omarosa storming the White House, Weekend Update has remained as sharp as ever.
Perhaps its Summer Edition string of episodes allowed its duo of Colin Jost and Michael Che to remain fresh during the late-night show’s hiatus or maybe it’s the pair’s clever comedy writing—which this week earned them promotions to head writer.
Whatever the reason, Weekend Update is the best thing about SNL right now, and that trend continued during the show’s final episode before the holiday break. First came a riff on Roy Moore, the Republican Senate candidate (and accused sexual predator of teen girls) who suffered an upset loss to Democrat Doug Jones.
ADVERTISEMENT
“On Tuesday, we saw exactly why Republicans try to keep black people from voting: ninety-eight percent of black women voted for Doug Jones,” said co-host Michael Che. “Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez tweeted, ‘#BlackWomen led us to victory…and we can’t take that for granted.’ Mmm…but I bet you will. And you know why? It’s because Democrats know that black people aren’t really Democrats, we just vote for the guy that looks less likely to put us on a boat.”
“Here’s how I vote: I look at both candidates, I listen to them speak, and then I ask myself, ‘If I got pulled over, which one of these candidates would I rather see approaching my car? And it’s almost always not the one on a horse,” added Che, before throwing to a picture of Moore.
Jost and Che then addressed how nine Democratic senators—led by New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand—have called on Trump to resign over the sexual-assault allegations against him (currently 16 women and counting).
After Gillibrand issued the call, Trump tweeted the following:
Trump’s retort was branded “a sexist smear” by Gillibrand and others in the Democratic Party, while USA Today’s Editorial Board composed an op-ed claiming: “A president who’d all but call a senator a whore is unfit to clean toilets in Obama’s presidential library or to shine George W. Bush’s shoes.”
Cue Jost: “Nine senators this week have called on President Trump to resign from office over the allegations of sexual assault. The problem is, you’re never going to shame President Grab-Ass out of office. Shame for Trump is like spinach for Popeye: it only makes him stronger. Especially with inappropriate sex stuff, because he’s already openly bragged about it. He didn’t go on Howard Stern 37 times to brag about real estate. All I’m saying is, it’s hard to assassinate a guy’s character when his character already committed suicide forty years ago.”
“I actually think President Trump should at least consider resigning,” added Che. “I mean, you’ve made your point already, dude. The political system is broken and probably rigged, and any idiot that understands television could mobilize the angriest people in the country with lies and insults and still somehow be more likable than Hillary Clinton. Point taken. We’ve learned our lesson. What else is there? If this were a Christmas movie, this would be the part where you winked at the camera and disappeared, and then we realized that you lived inside of us the whole time.”
