Irate Trump supporters have slammed Saturday Night Live for its brazen skit mocking the president’s response to being named in the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Saturday night’s cold open sketch sparked outrage among conservative critics for depicting Donald Trump inadvertently admitting to a damning relationship with the disgraced sex trafficker.
‘You people are sick!’ one X user reacted to the five-minute satirical segment. ‘Hope [Trump] sues the hell out of them,’ another chimed in.
‘SNL makes fun of Trump. Water is wet. Predictable and boring,’ one critic bluntly called out the show.
Set at a press conference, Trump, played by James Austin Johnson, sloppily responded to reporters’ inquiries about him being mentioned multiple times in emails sent by Epstein that were released on Wednesday.
His first botched response came after a reporter, Kenan Thompson, asked why he was reluctant to release the Epstein files, despite many of his supporters calling for them to be shared. ‘What does Trump have to hide?’ he asked.
‘I am hiding almost nothing, just enough to make it extremely suspicious,’ Johnson’s Trump responded before making what SNL painted as several Freudian slips in a back and forth with Kenan.
‘But, let me ask you a question – if there was something incriminating about me in the files, then why would I cover them up?’
Donald Trump, played by James Austin Johnson, held up a framed Jeffrey Epstein email mentioning him
Saturday Night Live mocked President Donald Trump, depicting him trying to dodge questions about his involvement with Epstein
Kenan’s baffled character quipped back: ‘Isn’t that exactly why you would cover them up?’
‘Ok, let me go again. If I was innocent, wouldn’t I just release all the files?‘ the president’s impersonator smugly replied as laughter rang out from the crowd.
‘As evidenced by the thousands of pictures of us together dancing and grinding our teeth at various parties, always leering and pointing at something just off camera – probably a book we’re excited to read.’
Another journalist, played by Mikey Day, asked Trump to respond to a specific email in which Epstein described Trump as ‘the dog that hasn’t barked.’
This sparked a nonsensical tangent from Johnson’s Trump, in which he started trying to identify with terms used in the gay community.
‘Ok, first of all, alright, I’m not a dog. I’m not a dog, I’m more of a cub or possibly an otter – definitely, not a twink. I think that’s clear, not a twink right,’ he replied.
‘Maybe twunk, you know gays have words for everything, right – “kiki,” we like to say “kiki” it means talking.’
In another rambling rant, the Trump mimicker said his answers about Epstein often contradicted each other because ‘Trump exists across many timelines.’
On Wednesday, emails sent by Jeffrey Epstein, left, mentioning Trump, right, were released
Saturday night’s cold open sparked internet outrage from MAGA proponents
‘It’s the Trump multiverse theory, we just happen to be living in the worst possible one,’ he said.
The president’s character then told the crowd of reporters that he was going to release all the Epstein files, selling each one individually for ‘the low, low price of $800.’
Holding up a framed copy of one of the allegedly incriminating emails Jeffrey sent, he said: ‘This is a beautiful, one-of-a-kind, printed-out screenshot in very low res of one of the many files mentioning President Trump.’
In a raunchy joke meant to mock Trump’s connections with Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, he told the audience: ‘I just ordered the one that says, “Does Putin have the photo of Trump blowing Buba,”‘
He wrapped up by saying he pardoned a turkey that was a sex criminal – alluding to Democrats’ sentiment that Trump has been too forgiving to sex offenders – by ‘complete coincidence.’
Many took issue with the cold open for not only bashing Trump but also for failing to target prominent Democrats who also had ties to Epstein.
‘Keep it coming baby and the Clintons and half of Hollywood will be in jail in no time,’ someone claimed on X.
‘Emails from Epstein are not evidence, he had a vengeance with Trump, just another Democratic hoax!?’ one man wrote.
‘Omg Epstein hated Trump because he wasn’t playing into his pedophile league. You actually protected this pedophile and refused to report about him,’ another added.
‘@NBCSNL hasn’t been funny in years,’ someone wrote.
