“Saturday Night Live” resumed its election-season custom of bringing on political candidates to play themselves, inviting Nikki Haley for a cameo in its opening sketches this weekend.
Haley, who has tried to utilize comedy and widespread tradition as she trails former President Donald J. Trump within the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, appeared in a phase that was introduced as a CNN city corridor occasion with Trump (performed by the present’s resident Trump impersonator, James Austin Johnson).
Johnson fielded questions from different “S.N.L.” solid members, explaining how he deliberate to beat President Biden and would “stop Taylor Swift from infiltrating the Super Bowl.” The city corridor moderators then launched a query from an viewers member “who describes herself as a concerned South Carolina voter.”
That voter turned out to be Haley, the previous governor of South Carolina (in addition to an envoy to the United Nations in the course of the Trump administration). “Yes, hello,” Haley mentioned to Johnson. “My question is, why won’t you debate Nikki Haley?”
“Oh my God, it’s her!” Johnson mentioned. “The woman who was in charge of security on Jan. 6. It’s Nancy Pelosi.”
Haley requested, “Are you doing OK, Donald? You might need a mental competency test.”
Johnson responded that he had taken such a check and acquired an ideal rating: “They said I’m 100 percent mental.”
He added that males had been higher suited to carry political workplace than girls, whom he declared “terrible with money — in fact, a woman I know recently asked me for $83.3 million.”
After the 2 exchanged additional taunts, Johnson mentioned that Haley was treating him badly. “I’m always very nice to you,” he mentioned, “except when I’m implying you weren’t born in this country.”
The ultimate city corridor query got here from the weekend’s host, Ayo Edebiri, who requested Haley: “I was just curious, what would you say was the main cause of the Civil War? And do you think it starts with an ‘s’ and ends with a ‘lavery’?”
This referenced a real-life query at a New Hampshire city corridor in December, the place Haley’s discursive response didn’t point out slavery.
She admitted, “Yes, I probably should have said that the first time.”
After her look on “S.N.L.,” Haley wrote in a social media post that she had “a blast tonight,” including: “Know it was past Donald’s bedtime so looking forward to the stream of unhinged tweets in the a.m.”
Trump later seemingly responded to her look by posting a video on his Reality Social account that purported to point out Haley making public statements through the years, contradicting herself on numerous matters.
Showing on the present as a visitor didn’t defend Haley from being teased later.
In the course of the Weekend Replace phase, Michael Che joked: “Nikki Haley has launched a series of campaign ads targeting both Donald Trump and Joe Biden called ‘Grumpy Old Men.’ OK, but at least they’re men.”
Opening monologue of the week
Edebiri, the comedian actress and author who gained an Emmy and a Golden Globe award final month for her function on the FX sequence “The Bear,” continued her appeal offensive in a monologue.
After showing to get genuinely choked up, Edebiri defined how she’d grown up in Boston, “which makes me the first Black woman to ever admit that.” She added, “Three days into February, I’m already making Black history.”
She additionally talked about rising up in an immigrant household with African and Caribbean roots (“So you know what that means,” she mentioned. “I’m in therapy”), and defined how solid members from “The Bear” ready for his or her roles by working in eating places. Although patrons typically assumed her co-star Jeremy Allen White was taking a Methodology method to his performing, Edebiri mentioned, “When they saw me, they’d just be like, ‘How much longer for my tilapia?’”
Let’s all go to the foyer of the week
After the AMC theater chain, forward of the discharge of “Dune: Part Two,” launched a limited-edition popcorn bucket supposed to depict an enormous sandworm, the design impressed greater than its share of social media posts from observers who thought it appeared like many different issues.
However nobody went fairly as far with these comparisons as Marcello Hernández, who led a musical ode to the collectible bucket, which he serenaded as if it had been a romantic associate.
Among the many few parts we are able to safely quote right here, Hernández sang, “Play my heartstrings just like a fiddle / and I’m not scared of the teeth in the middle.”
Weekend Replace jokes of the week
Over on the Weekend Replace desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Che riffed on the 2024 presidential election and right-wing conspiracy theories surrounding the connection of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
Jost started:
Simply hours in the past, President Biden gained the South Carolina Democratic main, barely edging out his closest rival, time. As you will have seen in your aunt’s Fb, many MAGA personalities are claiming that the Tremendous Bowl is being rigged in order that Kansas Metropolis wins and Taylor Swift can come on to the sector with Travis Kelce and endorse Joe Biden. Man, MAGA individuals have so many enemies to maintain observe of. It’s important to hate the N.F.L., Taylor Swift, Bud Mild, Disney, Kristen Stewart for some motive, electrical stoves, windmills, the idea of rainbows and the inexperienced M&M. And it’s important to assume that everyone within the authorities is a secret pedophile, aside from this man dancing with Jeffrey Epstein. [his screen showed footage from an old video of Trump with Epstein.] I imply, isn’t that the happiest you’ve ever seen Trump? He’s dancing like no person’s checking IDs.
Che continued:
President Biden made a drastic change in his immigration coverage, saying he can be keen to close down the border if given the facility by Congress. It’s the type of surprising shift in path Biden normally solely makes in the midst of a sentence.
