Pop Culture

'SNL' Skewers Donald Trump's Indictment: 'I've Never Seen Melania Happier'

On the latest episode of Saturday Night Live, the cold open took aim at the recent indictment of former President Donald Trump by a New York grand jury.

On the latest episode of Saturday Night Live, the cold open took aim at the recent indictment of former President Donald Trump by a New York grand jury.

Cast member James Austin Johnson, who has been impersonating the former head of state since joining the cast in 2021, opened the show as Trump, admitting he’s been indicted. “What the radical left Democrats are doing to me is worse than any crime I’ve ever committed, and I’ve committed a lot," he said. “Since the news of my possible imprisonment, I’ve never seen Melania happier.”

The sketch almost immediately went off the rails, with Trump introducing a new album titled Now That’s What I Call My Legal Defense Fund. “Just 30 classic covers, all over,” he added. Elsewhere in the sketch, he was joined by Kenan Thompson as Don King and Devon Walker as Afroman.

Trump was indicted for his alleged part in a payment plot with porn star Stormy Daniels, who previously alleged she slept with him before his 2016 presidential campaign. “Also, just to set the record straight, I didn’t even sleep with Stormy Daniels, but in many ways I did," said Johnson's take on Trump. "And isn’t it ironic that the first time I actually pay someone, they try to send me to jail? That’s why you don’t pay people, folks. You never pay people.”

He was later joined by Mikey Day as Donald Trump Jr., who helped him with a cover of PinkPantheress and Ice Spice’s “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2.” So if you ever wanted to hear Trump singing that track, this is the closest you’re ever gonna get.

Abbott Elementary creator and star Quinta Brunson hosted the SNL episode on Saturday, and she joked about the lack of diversity on Friends. She joked her show was “like Friends,” albeit with a cast that isn't just white people. “Except being about a group of friends, it’s about a group of teachers. And instead of New York, it is in Philadelphia. And instead of not having Black people, it does.”

Watch the sketch in full above.

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