At this point, the defining question of any “Saturday Night Live” opening sketch is, when will James Austin Johnson interrupt it in his role as President Trump?
In this week’s broadcast, hosted by Glen Powell and featuring the musical guest Olivia Dean, that question was answered with a slight twist when Johnson burst in on a White House press briefing that was supposed to quell renewed scrutiny of Trump’s friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. (Of course, Johnson’s answers only fanned the flames further.)
The briefing began with Ashley Padilla, playing the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who told a gaggle of reporters that she was excited to “answer your friendly questions.”
“As you all know,” Padilla said, “there was no news this week. Nothing happening with the president. No weird information was revealed. No one had any accusations that rhymed with ‘edophile.’”
The first question from Chloe Fineman (playing the CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins) asked about the release of some 20,000 of Epstein’s emails and why President Trump’s name appeared in so many of them.
“You know you suck, right?” Padilla replied. She added, “The only thing these emails prove is that President Trump did nothing wrong. If anything, his crime was loving too much. And possibly too young.”
Padilla parried more questions from reporters until Kenan Thompson asked, “What does Trump have to hide?”
It was here that Johnson took over the briefing himself: “I can answer that,” he said. “I am hiding almost nothing. Just enough to make it extremely suspicious. But let me ask you a question: If there was something incriminating about me in the files, why would I cover them up?”
A baffled Thompson asked, “Isn’t that exactly why you would cover them up?”
Johnson said, “If I was innocent, wouldn’t I just release all the files?
Thompson responded in disbelief, “Again, I think you’re agreeing with what everyone is saying.”
Johnson said of Epstein, “I barely knew the guy, OK, as evidenced by the thousands of pictures of us together, dancing and grinding our teeth at various parties. Always leering and pointing at something just off camera. Probably a book we’re excited to read.”
He said he believed Megyn Kelly had made an important point this week: “She said Epstein’s not a pedophile. Terrific thing to just say out of nowhere. Great job, Megyn.”
After promising to release each of the Epstein files “for the low, low price of $800,” Johnson added news of a further development.
“I pardoned a turkey who by complete coincidence is a convicted sex criminal,” he said. “So we’re going to be looking into that very shortly, I can assure you that.”
Opening monologue of the week
Powell, the amiable star of “The Running Man,” began with what seemed like a conventional monologue before sharing that he had originally been scheduled to host “S.N.L.” four years ago for his role in “Top Gun: Maverick” — that was, until the pandemic delayed the release of that film. When Powell first got the news of that hosting gig, he told the audience, he had taken a celebratory selfie with his family and a UPS driver (named Mitch) who happened to be passing by. But when his hosting offer was rescinded, Powell never got to tell Mitch.
Now that he had finally made good on his claim that he would be hosting “S.N.L.,” Powell brought Mitch onstage to take a new selfie and to prove that he hadn’t been lying all those years ago.
“If I have learned anything,” Powell said, “it is that the best things in life don’t happen overnight. And no one knows that better than UPS.”
Nostalgia explosion of the week
Speaking of things we’ve been waiting for: A few years have passed since the “S.N.L.” alum Will Forte was last on the show as MacGruber, his MacGyver-like action hero who inevitably finds himself locked in rooms with ticking time bombs.
But this week, MacGruber (who spawned his own spinoff movie and streaming TV series) was back — not once, not twice, but three times — in segments where his fervor to defuse these bombs was strangely dampened when he discovered his escape would help facilitate the release of the Epstein files. (OK, fine. MacGruber’s name is all over them.) Will MacGruber escape in the nick of time and get those papers to the proper authorities? Well, let’s hope someone made a backup copy.
Weekend Update jokes of the week
Over at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on the news of the recently released Jeffrey Epstein emails.
Jost began:
The longest government shutdown in history finally ended after 43 days and you know, first day back in the office, you’ve got to check all those piled-up emails. House Democrats released an email written by Jeffrey Epstein in which he claimed that Trump “knew about the girls.” It’s bombshell news that legal experts are calling “duh.” This week’s Epstein documents are obviously very dark and disturbing, but I also think it’s kind of adorable that Epstein’s email address was jeevacation@gmail. It’s like if Jeffrey Dahmer’s was dinnertimejeff@yahoo.
Che continued:
In one of the emails, Epstein’s brother asked if Vladimir Putin has a picture of Donald Trump giving oral sex to someone named Bubba, which was an old nickname for Bill Clinton. So I guess that’s one job Trump has created. I don’t know if that oral sex story is true but I do know that image is burned in my brain like that scene from “The Shining.” [His screen showed an image from “The Shining” in which a man in an animal costume and a man next to him on a bed were replaced by images of Trump and Clinton.] According to one released email, Jeffrey Epstein claimed that he was “the one able to take Trump down.” Which is pretty big talk for a guy who lost to a bedsheet.
Jost followed with another riff:
I just have to say, in general, I don’t really believe in conspiracies, because as a member of the Illuminati, I know that we, the lizard people, control everything. And it’s really hard to believe that Trump was so oblivious that he didn’t notice his good friend was running an international pedophile ring. Though I guess Trump is the one guy on earth who thinks “YMCA” is a straight anthem. And on a basic level, it’s shocking how many alleged pedophiles Trump was friends with. Epstein, Prince Andrew and Diddy. That’s a lot. Think about your own friend group. How many pedophiles do you know? One, maybe two. But Trump’s like the Forrest Gump of meeting famous pedophiles. [His screen showed an image of Trump seated on a bench and dressed like Forrest Gump.]
Dave Itzkoff is a former Times culture reporter.
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