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The first presidential debate may have been a disaster for Donald Trump, but it was something of a godsend for fans of Saturday Night Live.
Debuting its 42nd season last night, SNL featured a cold open with Alec Baldwin as Trump and Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton parodying the caricatures that came through to 100 million viewers in real time this past Monday.
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McKinnon’s Clinton impression was characteristically excellent. “I get it: You hate me,” she says. “Here’s a tip: If you never want to see my face again, elect me president, and I swear to God I will lock myself in the Oval Office and not come out for four years.”
But it was Baldwin as Trump who really stole the show (perhaps the Republican presidential nominee is something of an easy target). Among the moments of Baldwin-as-Trump that captured just how surreal the debate was to watch in real time:
- How Trump constantly interjected with words basically amounting to “shut up” and “wrong” while Clinton was talking. (Trump interrupted Clinton 51 times at the debate.)
- Turning around and leaving the debate within the first minute, and then blaming the microphone — “(Clinton) broke it with Obama; she and Obama took my microphone to Kenya and they broke it,” Baldwin says.
- The baldness of lying about the Iraq War despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary: "I was against the war in Iraq — ask anyone in the world named Sean Hannity.”
- The ridiculousness of some of what Trump brought up at the debate: “We should be talking about the important issues like Rosie O’Donnell and how she’s a fat loser.”
Toward the end of the parody, SNL’s Clinton begins to sob and is asked why.
“Because it’s going so well,” McKinnon-as-Clinton says. “It’s going better than I ever dreamed.”
