Alec Baldwin did not return as Donald Trump in this week’s “SNL” cold open, though he did appear in a photo on the wall of Eric Trump’s bedroom. But we did get a celebrity appearance in the cold open, with Robert De Niro showing up once again as special counsel Robert Mueller.
The sketch began with Eric (Alex Moffat) terrified by a bogeyman he thinks is out to get the Trump family, and comforted by Donald Trump Jr (Mikey Day) who read “The Night Before Christmas,” while also trying to reassure him that the whole family probably isn’t going to jail.
The bedtime story reading didn’t go super smoothly, mainly because Eric doesn’t know what any of the words mean — “Indict: There’s no sugar ‘indict’ coke,” Eric said after Don Jr. praised him for actually knowing the word “indict” — and they’re quickly interrupted by a noise coming from the closet.
Don Jr. insisted it’s just the cheap steel that their dad uses in Trump towers, but it turns out that actually it’s De Niro’s Bob Mueller in the closet. We kind of wonder if this was a last minute idea — it ends really fast after De Niro’s Muller shows up. First, Don Jr. has to leave to take a phone call about the family’s various legal issues, and Eric is left alone with Mueller — who describes himself as “your dad’s friend from work.”
De Niro’s Mueller tries to assure Eric that they aren’t trying to send him to jail, but he can’t say the same for basically everybody else that Donald Trump knows.
Eric then says to Mueller that people say that Mueller is the worst thing that ever happened to his father, but Mueller corrects him: “Getting elected president was the worst thing that ever happened to your dad.”
You can watch the full sketch above.