“Saturday Night Live” has shown some occasional hesitation this season about commenting on breaking news events that occurred on the day of a live broadcast. But the sketch show did not hesitate to weigh in on Saturday’s start of coordinated United States and Israeli military attacks against Iran.
This weekend’s episode began with a send-up of President Trump’s video announcement in which he said that major combat operations in Iran had begun.
James Austin Johnson, in his recurring role as President Trump, approached a lectern wearing a similar white USA cap and declared, “Happy World War III to all who celebrate.”
Introducing himself as “Donald Trump, FIFA Peace Prize winner and Nobel Peace Prize taker,” Johnson explained that the attacks took place “after me and my Board of Peace decided that we were bored of peace — a little wordplay there, did you catch it?”
“As we all know,” Johnson said, “Iran has been two weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon for like the last 15 years or something. So we had to act now and we’re doing war.”
Performing a brief parody of the Edwin Starr song “War,” Johnson chanted:
War / What is it good for? / Distracting from the / Epstein files.
Addressing the MAGA voters “who are upset and saying, ‘This is not what I voted for,’” Johnson said: “Well, you did. Don’t you know who I am? I’m me. Even I don’t know what I’m going to do next.”
To illustrate his point, he did a stiff dance move and said in a robotic voice, “Hello from the Year 5000.”
“What the hell was that?” Johnson said, in his regular Trump voice. “Nobody knows. Unpredictable.”
Explaining why the attacks had begun on Saturday morning, Johnson said the timing offered two military advantages. First, he said, “it’s after the stock market closes for the weekend.”
The second reason, he said, was “to cause immeasurable fear, rage and chaos in the ‘S.N.L.’ writers’ room.”
“Those guys were going crazy,” he continued. “They probably had a big State of the Union address thing they were going to do. Not anymore!” He went on to introduce “the man I’m going to blame it on when it doesn’t work,” bringing out Colin Jost in his role as the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.
Speaking loudly and aggressively (after polishing off what he said was a nonalcoholic Four Loko drink), Jost explained why the combat operation in Iran had been given the name Epic Fury.
“Simple,” he said. “Eight letters. Lines up perfectly for some bitchin’ knuckle tats.”
He then showed off his own knuckles, inked with the words FURY EPIC, acknowledging they were in the wrong order. “And those are my least problematic tattoos,” Jost said.
He said viewers should be thanking the Trump administration. “We took out a horrendous horrible leader who was oppressing his own people,” he said.
Johnson stuck his head into the frame and added, “But don’t get any ideas.”
Opening monologue of the week
This week’s host was Connor Storrie, who has shot to fame in the HBO Max series “Heated Rivalry,” about a romance between two closeted male professional hockey players.
Though he’s supposed to play a good skater on his show, Storrie said in his monologue that, after watching the Winter Olympics, he wasn’t confident that he had pulled off the role.
That was the cue for a walk-on appearance from the siblings Quinn and Jack Hughes, two stars of the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team, who won the gold medal in Milan.
“No way, man, I hear you’re great,” Quinn Hughes said. The brothers added that, with their busy schedules, they had not yet watched “Heated Rivalry.”
“It’s about hockey, right?” Quinn Hughes asked.
Storrie replied, “Kind of.”
They were then joined by Megan Keller and Hilary Knight, two of the champion players from the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team, who also won the gold medal. (Though players from the men’s team recently went to the State of the Union, the women’s team did not attend, citing other previous commitments. This came after remarks from President Trump where he said he’d be impeached if he didn’t invite the women’s team to attend.)
Professing familiarity with “Heated Rivalry,” Knight said that their monologue appearance “was going to be just us, but we thought we’d invite the guys, too.”
Keller added, “Yeah, we thought we’d give them a little moment to shine.” As the players celebrated the gold-medal victories of both teams, Quinn Hughes pointed out, “The last time the men did that was 46 years ago.”
Knight added, “And the last time we did that was two whole Olympics ago.”
Necessary cameo of the week
It would hardly be fair to have Storrie as host without an “S.N.L.” appearance by his “Heated Rivalry” co-star, Hudson Williams. Sure enough, Williams was perfectly deployed in a sketch about a couple (played by Tommy Brennan and Veronika Slowikowska) whose relationship is on thin ice when she hesitates in response to his marriage proposal at the Rink at Rockefeller Center. Though Brennan’s character is thrown for a loop, he’s more distracted by a group of guys in their 40s (including Williams) who seem to be having the time of their lives skating on the rink behind him and making dorky jokes. Hey, you can always find another fiancée — but how often do you see men who still hang out together at their age?
Weekend Update jokes of the week
Over at the Weekend Update desk, the co-anchors Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran.
Jost began:
Well, guys, I’m starting to worry that President Trump might not win that Peace Prize. After launching a massive military strike against Iran, Trump announced hours ago that they officially killed the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and replaced him with — oh, my God, the guy from Venezuela? [His screen showed an image of Nicolás Maduro in a black turban.] This attack might be a bad idea. I don’t know. I’m not really an expert on Iran. So let’s hear from someone who can explain why we might have done it. [A video from 2011 showed Trump saying, “Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He’s weak and he’s ineffective.”] Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. See, now that’s the Trump I voted for.
Che continued:
Detractors on CNN are saying that Trump had no authorization for this war. But he actually did. Netanyahu said it was OK. I can’t believe our leader could just attack Iran with no vote, no permission from Congress, or anything. I mean, what is this, Iran?
Jost also joked about the State of the Union address:
President Trump’s State of the Union address this week was the longest in history, lasting almost two full diapers. During the State of the Union address, President Trump said, “Our nation is back. Bigger, better and stronger than ever before.”
“Same,” said the measles.
Dave Itzkoff is a former Times culture reporter.
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