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Stormy Daniels on SNL: “a storm’s a-comin’, baby”

Daniels, who allegedly had an affair with Trump in 2006, appeared in SNL’s star-studded cold open Saturday, which also included Ben Stiller as Michael Cohen, Martin Short as Harold Bornstein, and Scarlet Johansson as Ivanka Trump.

Emily Stewart covers business and economics for Vox and writes the newsletter The Big Squeeze, examining the ways ordinary people are being squeezed under capitalism. Before joining Vox, she worked for TheStreet.

Stormy Daniels, the porn actress at the center of a brewing scandal surrounding Donald Trump, has a message for the president: “A storm’s a-comin’, baby.” She delivered it in a cameo appearance on Saturday Night Live’s cold open on Saturday. Daniels, who alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006, appeared in a star-studded skit featuring Ben Stiller as Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, Martin Short as doctor Harold Bornstein, Scarlet Johansson as Ivanka Trump, and Jimmy Fallon as Jared Kushner. It depicts the scale and scope of the president controversies around the White House.

The skit opens with Stiller, as Cohen, calling Trump, played by Alec Baldwin, from a payphone. “How are you holding up in prison?” Trump asks.

“I’m not in prison,” Cohen says.

“Give it a couple of weeks,” Trump says, as the camera cuts to two befuddled FBI agents listening in on the call.

Bornstein — Trump’s doctor who said this week that a 2015 letter he wrote claiming the then-presidential candidate was in “astonishingly excellent” health was dictated to him by Trump, and that Trump’s team had raided his office to take the president’s medical records — then gets on the line. “If you ever want to do drugs, I can get you all the drugs,” he says.

Then Cohen calls Rudy Giuliani, played by Kate McKinnon. “Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer and his worst nightmare,” says Giuliani. The former New York mayor is, of course, Trump’s newly appointed lawyer who has caused a stir with his inadvertent confessions and comments about the Daniels matter in media appearances in recent days.

And then a number of characters appear and speak with Trump and/or Cohen. Sarah Sanders, played by Aidy Bryant, asks whether the president lied to her about the Stormy Daniels affair. Melania Trump, played by Cecily Strong, asks if a woman has to testify against her husband if he’s accused of a crime. “No,” Cohen says. “But could she, if she wants to?” Melania asks. Omarosa Manigault, played by Leslie Jones, speaks with Cohen too. “Yeah, this is Omarosa, and I’m still pissed off,” she says.

Then Ivanka and Jared, played by Johansson and Fallon, get on the phone. “Did we hear Giuliani call Jared ‘disposable’ on national television? Because Jared is furious,” Trump says, referring to Giuliani’s Sean Hannity interview where he said that.

“Listen, Ivanka, you know your dad would do anything to protect you, but if he needs to, he’d throw Jared under the bus in a heartbeat,” Cohen says.

“What did he say?” Kushner asks.

“He said you’re fine,” Ivanka responds.

At the end of the call Daniels appears, as Cohen calls her, and Trump’s on the line as well. “Stormy, this is Michael Cohen, are you alone?” Cohen asks.

“Yes,” Daniels replies.

“And what are you wearing?” Trump interjects.

Trump and Daniels chat for a while. “What do you need for this to all go away?” Trump asks.

“A resignation,” Daniels says.

Trump asks why he can’t “solve us,” and Daniels replies, “Sorry Donald, it’s too late for that. I know you don’t believe in climate change, but, a storm’s a-comin’, baby.”

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