One of the big unknowns of the still-young Trump administration is the question of what’s going to happen during a national emergency. How is a president who has struggled to enact an agenda during a period of relative stability going to respond when something really awful happens, if there’s a viral outbreak or a terrorist attack or we go to war?
On this week’s episode of Saturday Night Live, we saw how Alec Baldwin’s Trump would handle an alien invasion in particular: exactly the way Trump is handling the presidency today.
“We have the best military, but we don’t win anymore,” Baldwin began, echoing one of Trump’s standard campaign lines. “The aliens are laughing at us, they’re killing us and they’re laughing at us.”
"The aliens are laughing at us and they're killing us. Mr. President! We have to do something!"
— Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl) March 12, 2017
Mr. President: pic.twitter.com/rAdOQTcSu6
He went on to hit the rest of Trump’s standard talking points: California was destroyed? That means Trump won the popular vote. The aliens just arrived? Actually, Trump heard on Infowars that they’ve been secretly infiltrating the country for centuries. The aliens are from Zorblatt 9? Trump doesn’t think we can be so sure that’s where they’re from, and he’s heard Zorblatt 9 is very nice and peaceful.
“Oh my god,” a soldier exclaims, “does he have business interests in Zorblatt 9?”
Let's try that one more time... #SNL pic.twitter.com/EO9qc8mdWZ
— Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl) March 12, 2017
Really, all that was missing from the sketch to complete the portrait of Trump’s presidency so far was a series of early morning rage tweets, and given Trump’s SNL viewing and tweeting habits, we may only have to wait a few more hours for those.
