Despite the protests, Republican candidate Donald Trump did indeed host “Saturday Night Live” last night, seizing the moment to show he can poke fun at others and at himself.
Among the sketches was one where he live tweets a bit he is not in so that viewers don’t have to miss his wit. It was a funny gag, with Trump first mocking each of the cast members in the sketch. Then he starts presumably poking fun at himself by questioning Kenan Thompson’s birth certificate.
Trump notes that if you add a “y” to Kenan you get Kenyan. Although, for someone who seriously suggests Mexico should build a fence on the border it’s hard to know just how much he was kidding.
The anti-Trump protests themselves got the “SNL” treatment, with Larry David taking up opponents’ calls to heckle the candidate.
“You’re a racist,” said David, who recently portrayed Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders on the show. “I heard if I yelled that they’d give me $5,000.”
“As a business man I can fully respect that,” Trump said.
The controversy appears to have paid off for NBC, with the show getting some of its highest ratings in years.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?
Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:
First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.
Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.
So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)
If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.
Yes, I'll give $5/month
Yes, I'll give $5/month
We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and
Google Pay. You can also contribute via
:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63704457/screen-shot-2015-11-08-at-8-42-45-am.0.1462675376.0.png)
