Breaking News Emails
Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
SUBSCRIBE
By Dennis Romero
“Saturday Night Live” asked how top Republican leaders in Congress continue to support President Donald Trump as he wages a trade war with China and stonewalls Congress.
The show’s cold open depicted MSNBC’s “Meet the Press” with Kyle Mooney portraying host Chuck Todd, Beck Bennett playing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Cecily Strong as Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Kate McKinnon portraying Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
Todd asked how the panelists could support escalating the trade war with China.
“There’s a simple answer to that,” Graham said. “There was no collusion.”
Todd reminded the senator that his question was about China. Graham stepped in to say that Trump is “a financial genius and a business Jesus.”
“This man has lost a hundred times more money than I’ve ever made,” he said, alluding to a New York Times report that Trump likely lost more money than any individual taxpayer in the United States from 1985 to 1994.
Todd pressed his guests to come up with anything Trump could do to lose their support. If the president “open hand slaps you in the face — what would you say then?” he asked.
Graham answered, “Harder, daddy.”
“Who are we kidding,” McConnell said, “we’ll always be ride or die …”
News segment “Weekend Update” returned to the president’s woes, including the report on his losses in the 1980s and ’90s.
“Well guys,” said co-host Colin Jost, “it turns out that Donald Trump may not be the financial genius that no one ever really thought he was.”
Michael Che marveled at the millions of dollars of red ink produced by Trump’s eponymous, defunct airline. “Just to give you an idea of how bad his airline was it lasted 33 years less than Spirit,” he said.
Academy Award winner Emma Thompson was the night’s host. Former “SNL” cast members Tina Fey and Amy Poehler returned to share the stage during Thompson’s opening monologue about Mother’s Day.
Poehler explained that when a mother says she needs to relax and get a massage, what she really means is, “How does one buy weed.”
Grammy Award-nominated trio Jonas Brothers returned for their second “SNL” appearance as the musical guest.