It turns out “SNL” is just as thrilled about Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election as we imagine a lot of you reading this are, as the show kicked off the sixth episode of Season 46 with a cold open — clearly whipped together at the last possible minute judging from the costume work (this is a compliment) — that saw the parody versions of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris taking a big victory lap.
Watch the full clip above now.
The episode marked the beginning of the end of Alec Baldwin’s time as a regular “SNL” guest star, thanks of course to Trump’s defeat. He was joined of course by Jim Carrey, who may or may not end up playing Joe Biden for the next four years, and Maya Rudolph, who definitely will be playing Kamala Harris through 2024.
The episode began with a nod to the fact that it took days for news outlets to finally declare a victor (more on that below), with Beck bennet as CNN host Wolf Blitzer announcing that Biden won. “I’m supposed to be a neutral news anchor but God dammit that feels good,” Bennet’s Blitzer said.
Then the scene switched to Carrey’s Biden in a parody of Biden’s victory speech earlier Saturday — a speech delivered just over three hours before the “SNL” live broadcast. Then of course, Rudolph came out and did a parody of Kamala Harris’ celebrated speech, wearing an outfit based on Harris’ IRL clothing.
“Like Joe, I am humbled and honored to be the first female, the first Black, the first Indian-American, and the first biracial vice president,” Rudolph’s Harris said. “And if any of that terrifies you, well, I don’t give a funt. Also, my husband will be the first Second Gentleman, and he’s Jewish, so between us we check more boxes than a disqualified ballot.”
Of course, the episode also created a clearly deliberate mirror-image, with host Dave Chappelle, who also hosted the first show after Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. In that earlier episode, the show opened with Kate McKinnon as Clinton, playing piano and singing Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” in a mournful acknowledgement of her loss.
This time, the show opted for brutal mockery when, late in the sketch, Baldwin’s Trump showed up to basically do all the things IRL Trump did all week, like lie repeatedly that he he won the election (he didn’t). But then, he walked over to a piano and played a sad, mournful version of The Village People’s “Macho Man.”
“This isn’t goodbye, America. I’m just gonna say: see you in court!” Baldwin’s Trump said after the song ended.
The sketch ended with a return to Carrey’s Biden and Rudolph’s Harris, who basically did what everyone else did, and had a blast mocking, while pretending not to mock Trump for losing.
“Well, unlike President Trump, we do accept the results of this election,” Rudolph’s Harris said.
“We’re not mad at them,” Carrey’s Biden added. “We have to act graciously in victory though. We need to go forward together. Unfortunately, there are situations in life, and this is one of them, where there must be a winner and” — at this point Carrey did a head tilt in the vein of his many comedy roles from the 1990s — “heeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyy looooser.”
Of course by now you know that just around 11:30 a.m. ET Saturday, the nerve-wracking 2020 election finally came to a conclusion when all major media networks called Pennsylvania for Joe Biden, securing the state’s 20 electoral votes and pushing him over the 270 EV threshold.
And of course, getting to the point where enough votes were tallied that news organizations felt comfortable declaring that Biden won the election took an agonizing 4 days. That was thanks in small part to COVID-19, which caused millions more Americans than usual to mail in their ballots. But the lion’s share of blame goes to Republican across the country who took great pains to make mail-in voting as difficult as possible in crucial swing states, specifically to reduce the number of votes against Trump.
But don’t forget, Trump has consistently tried to baselessly call the entire election — or at least the votes of Democrats — into question and as of this writing was still refusing to concede despite Biden’s unambiguous victory.
Given how soon before the latest “SNL” the final call came, we wonder just how much of what they initially planned got scrapped as they waited along with everyone else for the results.