President Trump has changed the Republican party, perhaps forever, which has been a touch strange for those of us old enough to remember the party of, let’s say, summer of 2016. So instead of sticking it to the big man himself this week — who, The New York Times reported, lost over a billion dollars from the ’80s through the ’90s, with some bail-outs from Papa Trump — SNL decided to dedicate its Cold Open to those who let him get away with anything.
The setting was Meet the Press, with Kyle Mooney’s Chuck Todd grilling Beck Bennett’s Mitch McConnell, Cecily Strong’s Susan Collins, and Kate McKinnon’s Lindsay Graham. (Friendly reminder that the president hates when SNL casts women as his male underlings.) Mooney asked them about such massive flip-flops, such as McConnell opposing tariffs for decades and now turning the other way when his superior proposes it.
“When you have a Business Jesus in the White House, you just gotta trust him,” McConnell told Todd. “This guy’s lost 100 times more money than I’ve ever made.”
Todd then asked them what on earth could cause the finally ditch the president, since possibly violating various laws hasn’t caused them to even critique him.
“The best way to uphold the law is to be above it, Chuck,” Graham told Todd.
Todd went way out there. At one point he went for the jugular: He asked them if they’d drop their Trump love if they discovered he was a Muslim. “Do we still get those tax cuts,” asked Graham. “Then I guess it’s ‘A salaam alaikum, Mr. President.”
One premise Todd threw out there was if he published their phone numbers online and asked his supporters to harass them, causing them to ditch their phone. If that sounds familiar, then that’s exactly what happened to Graham back when he still thought he was an idiot. “I was just seeing if you remember,” Todd asked him. But he definitely does remember.
What finally got them to almost disavow Trump (although not quite)? If he left FLOTUS for AOC.
