White House Slams ‘SNL’ After Cold Open Targets Trump and Brendan Carr
The White House has responded to the latest cold open of “Saturday Night Live” season 51, which took aim at Donald Trump and FCC chair Brendan Carr for their recent crackdown on late-night TV. White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson dismissed the sketch, stating that she had better things to do than watch it, like watching paint dry.
In the season 51 cold open, James Austin Johnson portrayed Trump interrupting Colin Jost’s Pete Hegseth impression to ensure that “SNL” wouldn’t say anything negative about him. Johnson’s Trump expressed his disapproval of the show’s new cast members and criticized the choice of the “Update” guy for the opening sketch.
The sketch also featured Mikey Day as Brendan Carr, the FCC chair, who danced into frame to the song “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell. Johnson’s Trump jokingly mispronounced Carr’s name, to which Carr corrected him before Trump dismissed him with a casual “Bye!”
The cold open ended with Trump issuing a warning, stating, “Remember: Daddy’s watching.” Johnson has been portraying Trump on “Saturday Night Live” since joining the cast in 2021.
The entire cold open can be viewed in the video below.
Overall, the latest cold open of “Saturday Night Live” season 51 poked fun at the ongoing tensions between late-night TV and the Trump administration. It will be interesting to see how these dynamics continue to play out in future episodes of the long-running sketch comedy show.
