Saturday Night Live’s season finale was packed with sharp barbs aimed at the GOP: It kicked off with Alec Baldwin reprising his role as Donald Trump and leading the cast in an epic parody of Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now,” and during “Weekend Update,” Leslie Jones ripped the lawmakers who passed Alabama’s strict anti-abortion law.
Before breaking out into song during the cold open, Baldwin’s Trump summed up his administration’s accomplishments so far this year, and cheerily described his summer plans: “I’m very excited about summer, getting around to those things that I never have time for — golf, visiting friends in prison, and enjoying all the fantastic new tariffs with China.”
“It’s been an incredible year for our economy, our American economy is on fire — I’m not gonna tell you if it’s a fire that keeps you warm or burns your house to the ground, but it’s some kind of fire,” he continued.
Baldwin’s Trump then broke out into song, joined by Cecily Strong playing Melania Trump, Beck Bennett as Vice President Mike Pence, and Aidy Bryant as White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
“But they call him Mr. Bad Advice, ’cause he listens to the Fox News guys,” Strong’s Melania crooned, followed by Bennett’s Pence singing, “I want to make a super-straight man out of you!”
There were other drop-ins as well: Chris Redd played a MAGA hat-wearing Kanye West, Kenan Thompson came in as Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and Robert De Niro appeared as special counsel Robert Mueller.
“Wait a second,” said De Niro’s Mueller. “I have something very important to say to the American people — something they need to hear.”
“No collusion, no obstruction!” Baldwin’s Trump interjected. “So don’t stop me now.”
Trump ended the segment with a nod to both his administration’s historic volatility and Game of Thrones.
“Guys, it’s been fun. I don’t know what’s next for me, but I wouldn’t be Trump if I didn’t say tune in next season to see who lives and who dies,” he said.
Leslie Jones sharply criticized Alabama’s abortion law
In a “Weekend Update” segment with Colin Jost, Leslie Jones slammed Alabama’s controversial new anti-abortion law in a bit that was equal parts funny and serious.
Jones arrived dressed in a costume from The Handmaid’s Tale, a show adapted from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel in which women are brutally oppressed within a religious and patriarchal society ruled by a totalitarian regime. Jones later removed the costume to reveal a T-shirt featuring the word “MINE” above a downward pointing arrow.
“This is how it starts. I’m out living my life, and then I see on the news [that] a bunch of states are trying to ban abortion and tell me what I can and can’t do with my body,” Jones says. “Next thing you know, I’m in Starbucks and they won’t take my credit card because I’m a woman — instead of the regular reason, which is, I don’t have no money on there.”
Jones tore into the members of the Alabama state Senate who voted for the law — all white men. After pulling up an image of the lawmakers, Jones mocked their appearance relentlessly.
“This looks like the mug shots of everyone arrested at a massage parlor,” she said. “And if any of them had lips, I would tell them to kill my entire ass.”
In a serious turn, she addressed the lawmakers directly, declaring, “You can’t control women.”
The segment ended with yet another Game of Thrones reference. Jones signed off by belting out “Dracarys!” — the show’s iconic command for dragons to incinerate their victims with fire.
