It’s a fickle and competitive environment playing the members of the Trump administration in the opening sketches on “Saturday Night Live.” James Austin Johnson’s familiar impression of President Trump was out — at least for this week. In his place and on the ascent was the longtime Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost, in his own recurring role as the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.
This weekend’s “S.N.L.” broadcast (hosted by Ryan Gosling and featuring the musical guest Gorillaz) began with a satirical news conference on C-SPAN where Jost took questions about the war in Iran — that is, after he finished a keg stand that left him covered in froth. “And relax, it was Sprite,” Jost said belligerently.
He explained that the U.S. military was treating Iran “like the breathalyzer in my car and blowing it the hell up.”
Jost said, “The situation’s complicated so let me put it in terms that I can understand. We’re giving Iran a third-degree purple nurple.”
And, he said, “we torpedoed their ships so bad, their Navy’s going to be singing ‘Under the Sea,’” singing that last portion with a mock Jamaican accent. “That’s right,” Jost added. “We can do Jamaican again, you’re welcome.”
When a reporter described the conflict as a war, Jost took umbrage.
“Whoever called this a war, except maybe the president a couple of times accidentally?” Jost said. “This isn’t a war. Also, why do we have to put labels on everything. What are you, my high school girlfriend, which I had?”
He continued, “This isn’t a war, it’s a situationship. We’re just going to hook up, we’re going to see where it goes. If it feels good, we’ll keep going and if we get bored, we’ll start hooking up with Cuba.”
Jost then turned the lectern over to Ashley Padilla, who was playing Kristi Noem, the recently ousted homeland security secretary (and whom Jost said had been “reassigned under the bus.”)
Bidding goodbye to her role as secretary, Padilla said, “I didn’t get fired. I self-deported.”
She said that she would not be giving up on her overall mission, adding, “As I told my plastic surgeon, the work is never done.”
But for now, Padilla said, “The time has come for me to turn in my badge, gun, lips, lashes, teeth and forehead.”
“So,” she said wistfully, “this may be goodbye, but this isn’t goodbye forever.”
Jost ducked his head back into the frame: “Yeah, except that it is,” he said.
“Oh, OK,” Padilla conceded.
Opening monologue of the week
If bringing Gosling back to host “S.N.L.” for his fourth time wasn’t hip enough, this week’s opening monologue also featured an extended cameo from another cool customer: Harry Styles, who is next week’s host and musical guest. Explaining that he was there to prepare for his own show, Styles mostly just sat in the front of the studio audience and smiled quietly. But it was enough (within the context of the bit) to throw Gosling off his game as he found himself performing an elaborate cover of Styles’s song “Sign of the Times.”
For more of Gosling being his usual charming self, we’d also recommend this sketch where he plays a low-key but persistent guest at a wedding reception who keeps trying to get the bride and groom to kiss; and this one where he plays a surprisingly convincing Willy Wonka-type character — at least until the sketch takes a darkly morbid comic turn.
Unlikely tradition of the week
When Gosling last hosted “S.N.L.” in 2024, the broadcast became memorable for a sketch where then-cast member Heidi Gardner kept bursting into laughter at the sight of two characters (played by Gosling and Mikey Day) who looked like Beavis and Butt-Head.
With Gardner now gone, it was Padilla’s turn to try unsuccessfully to stifle her giggles in a couple of scenes: first, in a sketch where she and Veronika Slowikowska played the riddle-posing guardians of a mystical treasure sought by a trio of especially dumb cyclopes; and later on in the night during a sketch where she played a schoolteacher being mercilessly roasted by her students. Don’t worry, Padilla, it happens to the best of them — just think about how you’ll keep a straight face when Gosling returns to host in 2028.
Weekend Update jokes of the week
Over at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on Noem’s firing and the war in Iran.
Jost began:
The homeland security secretary Kristi Noem has been fired. Wait. What? Why? I mean name one to 20 things she did wrong? Was it calling the innocent guy they shot a domestic terrorist? Was it spending $220 million of taxpayer money on an ad campaign where she dressed up like Jesse from ‘Toy Story’? She’s so happy riding the horse in this. I bet his name is Corey Lewandowski. On some level I feel bad for Kristi Noem. Imagine being singled out as the worst member of Trump’s cabinet. That’s like someone coming up to you at a party and saying, we think you should leave, you’re making Diddy uncomfortable.
Che continued:
President Trump said he will reassign Kristi Noem to be special envoy for the shield of the Americas. Which is a brand-new department, located on a farm upstate. The C.I.A. is reportedly working to arm local militias in Iran with the hopes that they will lead an uprising. Hey, it worked great in Afghanistan.
[His screen showed a picture of Osama bin Laden].
President Trump said that he should be involved in choosing Iran’s next supreme leader. So congrats to new supreme leader Ayatollah Jared Kushnari.
[His screen displayed an image of Jared Kushner wearing a turban.]
Dave Itzkoff is a former Times culture reporter.
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