Saturday Night Live opened the third episode of its new season spoofing this week’s Jan. 6 select committee hearing.
Cast members portraying prominent lawmakers on the committee took turns blaming former President Donald Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and mocking the investigation before poking fun at footage released by the panel this week of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) coordinating with Vice President Mike Pence and other officials to restore order.
The committee then introduced a video of Trump, played by James Austin Johnson, sitting on a giant gold toilet taking a phone call. The fictional Trump claims on the call that votes aren’t real and that Apollo Creed is a close friend of his before asking: “Is Pence dead yet?”
“As you can see, we are committed to rolling out for this ninth and final hearing that Jan. 6 was one of the most dramatic and consequential moments in our nation’s history,” Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), played by veteran cast member Kenan Thompson, said. “So to fight back, we assembled a team of monotone nerds to do a PowerPoint.”
He then held hands with his “best friend,” committee co-chair Liz Cheney (R-WY), played by Heidi Gardner, who expressed regret over her decision to commit her political career to fighting the former president: “Whether you’re a Republican who’s not watching or a Democrat who’s nodding so hard your head is falling off, one person is responsible for this insurrection, Donald Trump, and one person will suffer the consequences, me.”
Closing statements of the January 6th committee pic.twitter.com/uIR4kiiWdL
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) October 16, 2022
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), played by Andrew Dismukes, revealed that he stole one of Thompson’s cupcakes, which the committee chairman had promised to everyone as a treat at the end, before directing viewers to watch footage of Pelosi and Schumer on the phone with Pence.
A frazzled and furious Pelosi, played by Chloe Fineman, could be seen on the phone with the outgoing vice president while sitting next to a distracted Schumer, played by Sarah Sherman. As Pelosi asked when and how they’d be able to leave their secure location and return to the Capitol to certify President Joe Biden’s electoral victory, Schumer attempted to complete a DoorDash food delivery order.
“If Trump comes, I’m gonna punch him out, and then I’m going to jail,” Fineman’s Pelosi warned, mimicking the real words the House speaker said during the aired segment, to which Sherman’s Schumer responded: “Let me tell you, if Trump comes, I’m gonna let him punch me in the face. I’ll go to the hospital. Free soup.”
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“Hello, DoorDash? It’s Chuck Schumer,” Sherman later said as the Senate Democratic leader. “Yes, we still haven’t received our lunch order. And I did change our drop-off location due to some unfortunate treason, but it should have arrived by now.”
After mocking their own efforts to subpoena the former president as an “empty gesture,” Kenan Thompson said as the committee’s chairman: “We tried. It was a fun country while it lasted.”
