It didn’t quite make up for Donald Trump’s host Saturday Night Live during the start of his 2016 presidential campaign, but it was something.
As Colin Jost explained on this week’s show, “Aside from an upside-down Christmas wonder, this is the last ‘Weekend Update’ with Donald Trump still in office.”
“Now he was mostly bad as president, but there were a few bright spots,” the anchor continued as the cheers faded. So before he is calmed down and moved in like a dinosaur Jurassic Park, I want to take a moment to recognize some of his best moments at the office. “
With that, Semisonic’s “Closing Time” began to play and SNL shared a strangely cathartic montage of the 45th president’s most embarrassing photos and videos taken in the past four years, from throwing paper towels at hurricane victims to mocking a disabled reporter and everything in between.
“Don’t cry because it’s over, laugh because it happened,” Jost said when it was over. And then probably cry a little. I don’t know, I still work it out with my therapist. “
From there, Jost and co-anchor Michael Che moved on with the coronavirus pandemic, which is raging harder than ever in the final weeks of Trump’s tenure.
“Mike Pence got the coronavirus vaccine on Friday, and that’s the first time he’s ever given permission to use protection,” Che said. And then, “Mike Pence said when he got the vaccination, ‘I didn’t feel anything,’ which is what he said to himself over and over again after seeing Harry Styles in that dress.”
Jost then pointed out that Trump’s White House “left it up to the states” to distribute the vaccine. “Which shocked me because, knowing Trump, I thought it would definitely happen through a live Powerball lottery. The ratings would have been insane, and it would have been the first White House job for which Ivanka was eligible. “
Then, in the surest sign yet SNL is ready to move on from Trump, Jost made a genuinely brutal joke about his successor.
“The Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece suggesting that Dr. Jill Biden has stopped using the term doctor because she has a PhD and is not a doctor, ”he said. “Although she has sometimes acted as a nurse.”
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