After a day’s worth of political fallout following Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s latest scandalous remarks, the writers at Saturday Night Live called an audible to take advantage and work it all into the show’s cold opening this evening. The show began with an encore of the debate between Vice Presidential candidates Tim Kaine and Mike Pence, but when Pence stated that Trump never said a single bad thing about women, a CNN Breaking News alert interrupted the debate. Brooke Baldwin (Cecily Strong) reported the revelations of Trump’s off camera lewd comments made to Billy Bush, and on came Trump himself, in the grimacing form of Alec Baldwin. She said that Trump finally got what he wanted — a working microphone — and then it was left to Alec Baldwin’s Trump to dig a deeper hole. He first asked the audience, Maximus-like, “are you not entertained?” Then when Brooke Baldwin stumbled over a description of the comments about women that got him in hot water, he helpfully said “grab them by the pussy.” Trump then “apple-a-gized,” and said that back when the comments were made in 2005, he was “a young, childish 59-year old man.”
When Brooke Baldwin began to bring up all the Republicans who’d pulled their endorsement of Trump today, he was quick to respond, calling John McCain “coward,” and former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina “a 4,” and Idaho Senator Mike Crapo “more like crappo.” When told that Pence had denounced his comments, Trump called him “puny Pence” and in his message to women, he promised them, “I can do a whole lot more than just grab it. I can bop it, twist it and pull it.”
Trump ended with a touching tribute to those in Florida suffering from Hurricane Matthew, but then after Brooke Baldwin broke away from the beleaguered businessman-turned-pol, his voice came over the air again, as he was unaware once again that his mic was still on. He had more to say about the hurricane, opining that “I wish I was that hurricane, tearing through all that hot Miami pussy. I would just destroy it.” CNN cut to Hillary Clinton headquarters, where she (in the form of Kate McKinnon) was popping champagne and full swing in a dance party, and you had a fairly racy and timely opener before host and Hamilton creator Lin Manuel Miranda took the stage. More on the show tomorrow morning.
