Alec Baldwin and SNL Call Trump a Christmas Gift to Putin
Following another week without Donald Trump releasing his tax returns, Amagansett’s Alec Baldwin once again reprised his role as the president-elect on Saturday Night Live. For those out of the loop, Trump criticized Baldwin’s portrayal of him via Twitter, and Baldwin responded by swearing to stop playing Trump on SNL if the president-elect agreed to finally reveal his taxes.
In Saturday’s cold open sketch, Baldwin’s Trump and his beleaguered campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, played by Kate McKinnon, stand in front of a hearth in Trump Tower. The skit begins with Trump talking about his thank you tour, where he thanks all his supporters “by standing in front of them while they cheer for me.”
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Then they begin discusses the cabinet choices, including Secretary of Energy choice Rick Perry, about whom Trump says, “I saw him on Dancing with the Stars—this guy has so much energy, he’s just un-president-ed.” He follows this by asking Conway who they’ve picked to be president. When Trump learns he has to be president, he asks if he can do the job three days a week “like Howard Stern does.”
For her part in the administration, Conway says she’ll do what she’s always done—”master illusionist”—and then reveals the list of the two musicians who’ve agreed to play at Trump’s inauguration.
Melania Trump (played by Cecily Strong) takes to the stage as Conway leaves, and then Russian President Vladimir Putin (Beck Bennett) arrives though the chimney. The bit quickly falls into a scene showing Trump as a dupe who doesn’t realize he’s being manipulated by Russia—Putin gives him an Elf on a Shelf doll, which clearly has a surveillance camera inside it, to keep near his internet router. And when Trump thanks Putin, saying that he doesn’t have a gift for him, the Russian president says, “Please, Mr. Trump, you are the gift.”
All this of course is criticizing the fact that the American CIA has plainly said Russia hacked America with the intention of getting Trump into office, yet the real-life president-elect will not concede this to be true. He won’t even agree that the hack definitely happened or that Russia is responsible.
Finally, the sketch turns to Trump’s secretary of state pick, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson. Played by a slimmed down SNL fave, John Goodman, Tillerson arrives and shows his tight relationship with Putin, or “Pootie,” as Goodman’s Tillerson calls him. Baldwin’s Trump simply stands by, watching Tillerson and Putin discuss oil deals and deregulation plans, unable to keep up.
So far, the real Trump has not responded via Twitter. It’s possible he’s learning.
Watch the skit below.