In Saturday Night Live’s first episode of 2017, Alec Baldwin returned once again to reprise his role as Donald Trump, and the show set its sights on the biggest news boondoggle of the week: the president-elect’s first press conference since winning the election.
SNL showers Donald Trump with a toilet humor-themed press conference
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
Not straying too far from reality, SNL’s version of Trump’s press conference poked fun at Trump scolding BuzzFeed and CNN, as well as Trump’s gesture of showing off a bunch of papers in folders as a symbol of how he’s divesting his business holdings. The sketch also went straight for toilet humor — a nod to the bombshell report that Russia has compromising personal and financial information on Trump.
“Did you guys, like, all pee, or did you just watch them pee?” a reporter asks.
“I do not want to talk about the peepee,” Baldwin’s Trump replies. “I am going to bring back a thick stream of jobs back to this country. The biggest, strongest, steadiest stream. This country will literally be showered with jobs.”
The sketch also pokes fun at Trump’s penchant for commenting on just about everything — except for the recent intelligence suggesting that Russia interfered with the election. A shirtless Vladimir Putin holding up a cassette labeled “Pee Pee tape” asks Trump who he thinks was behind the hacks.
Trump stammers. “I mean, maybe it was China. I mean Canada. It was Meryl Streep.”
Perhaps the most cutting moment of the sketch is a small joke devoted to health care. It’s a passing quip, but it instantly reveals how SNL’s writers are steeling themselves for Trump’s presidency.
“If you repeal [Obamacare], 20 million people will lose their health insurance. I mean, people could die,” a reporter says.
“Listen sweetheart, I’m about to be president,” Trump says. “We’re all gonna die.”
