Saturday Night Live’s cold open this weekend featured Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) placing Georgia GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker in a panic room to avoid creating any additional controversies before Tuesday’s runoff election.
The seventh episode of the new season began with James Austin Johnson’s McConnell discussing Walker’s frequently problematic candidacy with Mikey Day’s Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) and Cecily Strong’s Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). McConnell then calls Kenan Thompson’s Walker into the room.
DAVE CHAPPELLE RIPS ‘OBSERVABLY STUPID’ HERSCHEL WALKER, KANYE WEST’S ANTI-SEMITISM IN SNL MONOLOGUE
“Hey there, Mitch McDonald’s,” Walker says while greeting the Senate leader. “I’m sorry I am late. I was having too much fun in that free merry-go-round you have out front.”
“That’s a revolving door, Herschel,” McConnell replies before offering him a seat next to Blackburn.
After admitting that he has no idea who Cornyn, the No. 2 Senate Republican and a former Texas Supreme Court justice, is, Walker greets Blackburn by calling her “your highness.”
The group then discusses the importance of Walker’s race after Republicans’ disappointing midterm performance, with Cornyn telling Walker that they still believed a victory against incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) this Tuesday was possible.
Told by Blackburn that the “priority now is to get out the vote because you’ve got this big runoff coming up,” Walker replies, “Oh well, I’m good at those. My ex-wife says all I do is run off.”
The three go on to discuss how close the race was, with Blackburn saying polls had Warnock at 50.9% and Walker at 49.1%.
Herschel Walker and his team meet to strategize for the runoff election in Georgia pic.twitter.com/thAPFLh0rm
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) December 4, 2022
“Well then, the first priority is to figure out which number is bigger,” Walker tells the group.
McConnell and Cornyn tell Walker that they wanted to meet with him to make sure there were no other scandals from his past that could come out before Tuesday, to which the Georgia football great replies that there certainly are. The camera then pans to a clock, which shows hours go by as Walker tells them of past personal transgressions that have yet to surface.
“Anyway, she didn’t want to keep it, so I drove her down to the Planned Parent-trap,” Walker says, meaning to say Planned Parenthood in a story appearing to be about an abortion.
The senators then ask Walker to give them a moment alone while they discuss what to do, though he tells them he would simply take a nap under a blanket until they were done. While asleep, the trio decide Walker would be better off if kept out of public view before Tuesday and invite him to stay in McConnell’s old panic room to close out the sketch.
Thompson’s Walker appeared to match the description given to the GOP Senate candidate by comedian Dave Chappelle during his post-midterm SNL monologue: “observably stupid.”
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Warnock bested Walker in the November midterm elections 49.4% to 48.5%, with Libertarian Chase Oliver getting 2.1% of the vote, his votes keeping the two major party candidates from surpassing the 50% threshold necessary to avoid a runoff by state law.
In the gubernatorial race between incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) and his 2018 Democratic opponent, Stacey Abrams, the governor was declared the winner before 80% of precincts reported their results, given that he earned 54% of the vote and comfortably evaded a runoff. While it’s rare for Georgia voters to split their ticket, a number of Republicans and independent Kemp voters hesitated to back Walker due to his string of controversies, including multiple accusations of domestic violence and reports he paid for numerous women’s abortions despite campaigning on an anti-abortion platform.
