The White House has responded to the first episode of Saturday Night Live season 51, which mocked President Donald Trump and FCC chair Brendan Carr over their war with late night shows.
“Reacting to this would require me to waste my time watching it,” a White House spokeswoman told Entertainment Weekly. “And like the millions of Americans who have tuned out from ‘SNL,’ I have more entertaining things to do — like watch paint dry.”
The long-running sketch show aired the premiere of its new season on October 4, and wasted no time in skewering the president.
The show’s cold open starred comedian James Austin Johnson, reprising his role as Trump, who sounded off about multiple things including how he had ended “all wars.”
“I ended all the wars. Every single one of them — except the two main ones that are still happening and are more vicious than ever,” the actor quipped.
In front of an American flag as the backdrop, “Trump” also said: “I’m just keeping an eye on SNL, making sure they don’t do anything too mean about me.”
He continued: “And I know late-night TV like the back of my hand,” showing a make-up covered hand in reference to the president’s bruised hand that has caused speculation about his health.
“Remember: Daddy’s watching!” he added.
The fake Trump then warned that SNL needed to be on its best behavior, or fear being set upon by his “attack” dog, chair of the Federal Communications Commission Brendan Carr. He was played by SNL’s Mikey Day, who danced on to the stage to a version of “Somebody’s Watching Me” by the singer Rockwell.
Late night comedy shows have felt the impact of the president’s ire in recent months. Trump has celebrated the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show at CBS, and the temporary suspension of Jimmy Kimmel by ABC.
Kimmel was taken off-air over comments he made about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk but returned after a week, much to Trump’s chagrin.
Carr, whom the president appointed, had called Kimmel’s remarks about Kirk “truly sick” and suggested that ABC’s license could be at risk over it.
Saturday Night Live chose Puerto Rican superstar, Bad Bunny, as host for this season’s first episode. The rapper, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, delivered a monologue in which he joked that “everyone” is happy that he was picked to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show next year, after it was announced earlier this week and incensed some conservatives.
“I’m doing the SuperBowl halftime show. I’m very happy and I think everyone is very happy about it, even Fox News,” the Puerto Rican superstar quipped. Then a montage of clips of Fox News hosts played, showing each speaking one word to collectively say: “Bad Bunny is my favorite musician. He should be the next president.”
MAGA supporters had expressed anger over Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl selection, pointing to the musician’s recent remarks that he would not be performing at U.S. venues during his 2025-2026 tour over fears that Immigration, Customs and Enforcement agents “could be outside” his concert venues and target fans. Some also fumed that most of his set will be in Spanish.
From the SNL stage Saturday, the singer then spoke in Spanish during his opening monologue. In part, he said: “Our footprints and our contribution in this country, no one will ever be able to take that away or erase it,” according to a translation by the Hollywood Reporter.
Switching back to English, the musician concluded: “And, if you didn’t understand now what I just said, you have four months to learn!”
