"Saturday Night Live" gave America a picture of what Donald Trump's White House might be like during the Republican presidential candidate's controversial guest appearance on the show.
The year is 2018, and Trump is hosting a cabinet meeting in the Oval Office, with "Apprentice" contestant Omorosa as his Secretary of State. "After your face-to-face meeting, Putin has withdrawn from Ukraine," she says. "Believe me, he does not want to be called a loser again. He cried for hours."
The national anthem has been rewritten (new lyrics: "It's yuuuge."), China is borrowing money from America, and Telemundo has been converted to an English-language network.
The sketch ends with Trump declaring that if you think this is great, you ain't seen nothing yet. "I said to the writers of this sketch, keep it modest, OK? It's better to start with low expectations, that way you have nowhere to go but up." It's then revealed that the whole sequence has been a campaign ad funded by The Melania For First Lady Foundation.
Trump explained at the start of the evening that he was taking part in poking fun of his own campaign "because he could take a joke." He has previously called himself "an entertainer," when he wanted to deflect negative attention he received for a remark about Carly Fiorina's face. "Many of those comments are made as an entertainer, because I did 'The Apprentice.' It was one of the top shows on television. I decided not to do it again because I wanted to run for president. But some comments are made as an entertainer. And, as everybody said, as an entertainer [it] is a much different ballgame."
Trump’s invitation to host was met with outrage. A coalition of Hispanic advocacy groups had publicly called for SNL to pull Trump from the show, and accused NBC of providing a platform for “hateful speech” by having him on. On Wednesday, activists presented NBCUniversal with a petition carrying 500,000 signatures, urging the network to find a different guest host.
Back in June, the network announced it would no longer air the Miss Universe and Miss USA Pageants, co-owned by Trump, because of derogatory comments he made about Mexican immigrants. “When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best,” Trump said in a speech announcing his run for president. “They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
Protesters gathered outside of 30 Rock Saturday night, chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, racism has got to go!” "Allowing Trump to host 'Saturday Night Live,' a storied comedy show, is nothing short of a slap in the face to the more than 57 million Latinos living in the U.S.,” said Brent Wilkes, the national executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, which organized the protest.
67 Hispanic public figures signed an open letter this week denouncing Trump, and appealing to Americans to “stop tolerating his absurd views.” The Democratic National Committee piled on Saturday night with a mass email slamming Trump’s ideas on climate change and Obamacare, in addition to immigration.
