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If you thought Alec Baldwin would skip this week’s SNL just because he was recently charged with a misdemeanor, then you were right. We have no way of knowing if that’s the reason there wasn’t a trace of his version of The Donald in the final episode before the mid-season elections this Tuesday. But whatever the case, the cold open managed to work fine without him…by focusing on his character’s favorite channel, Fox News.
The night’s opening skit revolved around Kate McKinnon reprising her devastatingly uncanny impression of Fox News host Laura Ingraham, best known amongst the mainstream for mocking teens who survived an unspeakable gun massacre yet still holding onto her job.
In between shilling for ridiculous products that haven’t ditched her (like “warm ice cream”), McKinnon’s Ingraham spent her time mostly on the “caravan” of migrants slowly — very, very, very slowly — making their way to the American border on foot. It’s been a favorite target among the president and his dittoheads, yielding countless queasily bigoted dog whistles. Many journalists and pundits have called out such statements for what they are. But SNL’s version of Ingraham wasn’t having it. She defended the commander in chief.
“Except for his words and his actions throughout his life, how is he racist?” she asked rhetorically. “All of a sudden the word ‘nationalist’ is bad. The word ‘white’ is bad. The words ‘white nationalist’ are bad. When I hear ‘white nationalist’ I just think of a fun backyards barbecue.”
McKinnon then went on to satirize the hysteria attached to the caravan, which was only slightly more ridiculous than reality.
“It’s got everyone you’ve ever seen in your nightmares,” she said. “It’s got Guatemalans, it’s got Mexicans, ISIS, the Menendez brothers, the 1990 Detroit Pistons, and several Babadooks.”
Multiple times Ingraham showed footage backing up her tall claims. At one point she set up footage of the caravan climbing over the wall, at which point we cut to a scene from World War Z, complete with a close-up of Brad Pitt. (“We think he’s dating the caravan, which people have labeled ‘Bradavan.’”)
By the end, Ingraham laid out three tips for black and Hispanic voters: “Never vote on Tuesdays,” “Ballots can be confusing” (suggesting that R really stood for Democrats), and “You already voted.”
Baldwin did make an appearance at the skit’s end. Ingraham said they had an update from the “disgraced former actor,” then showed an image from one of his early 1990s-era SNL hosting gigs, with him sleeping next to a young Adam Sandler, which she described as showing him “molesting a young boy scout.” Damn. Don’t they kind of work with him?
