‘Saturday Night Live’ Opens With Alec Baldwin Making America Great Again By Drinking Bleach

Anita Bennett
·3 min read

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Saturday Night Live kicked off its season 45 finale this weekend with a tip of the hat to the Class of 2020. The cast members appeared on-screen remotely in the cold open as graduating seniors, with Alec Baldwin joining them as President Donald Trump.

Wearing a red “Make America Great Again” cap, Baldwin offered a somber commencement address warning the graduates that the job market is bleak because of the COVID-19 outbreak.

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“You’re actually lucky to be graduating right now,” he began, before delivering the bad economic news. “There are so many exciting new jobs out there, like grocery store bouncer, cam girl, porch pirate, amateur nurse, and coal. Don’t forget about coal, it’s in the ground and you just dig down and grab it.”

Chris Redd and Kenan Thompson interrupted him, but he cut them off with a racist reply.

“Hey, let’s mute him. Let’s mute a lot of the jazz types,” Baldwin said about the black cast members.

The graduates were unimpressed with Baldwin’s speech and shouted “we want Fauci,” referring to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Later, Baldwin began to cough, suggesting he might have coronavirus. But he came up with a quick remedy and put a bottle of Clorox bleach up to his mouth and chugged it, in a reference to the real President Trump’s recent comments about potentially using disinfectants to knock out the virus.

Baldwin called the drink “good ole invincibility juice.” Hopefully there was just water in the container!

He then offered the graduates a bit of life advice.

“Believe in yourselves and you can achieve anything, look at me. I started as the son of a simple, wealthy slumlord and grew to become a billionaire, a president, and the world’s leading expert on infectious diseases,” he said. “Surround yourself with the worst people you can find, that way, you’ll always shine. If you don’t understand something, just call it stupid. Never wear sunscreen, and live every day like it’s your last, because we’re going to let this virus run wild.”

The episode marked the show’s third “At Home” installment amid the coronavirus pandemic. The first one aired on April 11 and was opened by Tom Hanks and featured a musical performance from Chris Martin.

The second episode ran on April 25, and was opened by Brad Pitt who appeared as Dr. Fauci, and featured a special appearance from Miley Cyrus as the musical guest. Latin rapper Bad Bunny also appeared in a sketch.

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