Democrats control all three branches of government, but that hasn’t stopped one of their biggest arch-nemeses: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The longtime progressive adversary somehow seems to have more power than ever, due in part to his utter shamelessness: He will do anything, even threaten to tank the economy, to show off the power he should no longer have. So when he finally agreed last week to raise the debt ceiling through December, thus avoiding an almost certain economic apocalypse, SNL wasn’t exactly impressed.
During the most recent episode’s Weekend Update, Colin Jost saved a small but savage section for Congress’ most powerful Republican. He mentioned McConnell’s move this week, but he didn’t praise him for clearing the lowest possible bar. Instead, Jost showed a picture of McConnell smiling and flashing a thumbs up, which he said showed him “watching a child fall into the gorilla enclosure.”
McConnell’s gesture this week ensured that we’ll all be back to worrying about the debt ceiling limit — which is sky high thanks to wild spending by the Trump administration, under McConnell’s watch — in two months. “At that point,” Jost joked, “it’ll be almost Christmas, and McConnell will be busy going around to Toys for Tots bins and gluing them shut.”
Jost and co-anchor Michael Che had a lot of scorn to go around during their segment, scorching the likes of Facebook, Instagram, even the night’s host, Kim Kardashian West. But only McConnell got jokes about delighting in the misery of children.
You can watch the segment in the video above.