Staff ReportsSaturday Night Live rolled out another cold open on December 13, 2025 that aimed to skewer Donald Trump in a press-conference parody — and predictably the sketch raised more eyebrows than laughs. The show leaned on familiar caricature rather than clever satire, turning its energy toward personal jabs and recycled narratives instead of holding the elite class accountable for real failures.
James Austin Johnson played the former president in a scene aboard Air Force One where the comedy leaned into pill-popping jokes, erratic tangents, and a cartoonish embrace of the newly released Epstein-related photos. The bit stitched together every smear the media could find into one brittle sketch, as if piling on insults would substitute for wit or evidence.
The predictable result was backlash from the very audience SNL thinks it owns; conservatives called the skit mean-spirited and hollow, and many on social media shrugged at another stale hit job. When late-night comedians trade punchlines for partisan press releases, they end up energizing the target more than convincing anyone outside the choir — a fact the show keeps failing to learn.
This isn’t an isolated misfire; SNL has been trotting out the same tired routine of ridiculing political opponents instead of punching up at real power. Even high-profile figures outside the usual right-wing sphere have called out the show for crossing into dishonesty rather than satire, exposing a cultural rot in which prestige comedy confuses bias for bravery.
Americans fed up with the coastal elite’s condescension would be wise to stop treating SNL as the cultural arbiter it pretends to be and start demanding accountability from the networks that bankroll this one-sided humor. If the show wants relevance, it should try making audiences think instead of merely signaling to the same liberal bubbles — until then its “roasts” will keep bouncing off the wall and straight back into its own echo chamber.
