‘Saturday Night Live’ Spoofs Election Fraud Hearing That Featured Rudy Giuliani And His Belligerent Star Witness

Ted Johnson
·3 min read
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When President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani appeared with his star witness at a Michigan State Senate voter fraud hearing this week, the woman, Melissa Carone, appeared to many as an outrageous character out of Saturday Night Live.

Not to miss an opportunity, the show’s cold open was a spoof the the wild hearing, with Cecily Strong playing Carone, whose belligerent antics went viral. (The Washington Post even compared her to SNL characters played by Strong).

“I personally saw hundreds if not thousands of dead people vote,” said Strong as Carone.

“You saw them?” a lawmaker asks her at the hearing.

“Basically yes,” she said. “I remember, because I was walking out and they were walking in. And they they gave their votes to Democrats, and then I did something crazy with them. Damn.”

Kate McKinnon played Giuliani, who through the skit calls on a more absurd group of witnesses, including Mike Lindell, the MyPillow guy, and Chloe Fineman as Nicole Kidman’s character from the HBO series The Undoing.

Especially in the post-election period, reality has seemed like satire and visa versa. As the Trump campaign has suffered dozens of losses in court for unfounded claims of electoral fraud and have failed in attempts to overturn results in states won by Biden, the president and his allies have only seemed to double down on conspiracies and non-sensical charges, including that Hugo Chavez, dead for seven years, was somehow behind a communist plot. Just hours earlier, the real Mike Lindell appeared on a pro-Trump network to lay out how Georgia and other states could reject the will of the voters and instead install Trump electoral for the Electoral College vote on Dec. 14. Trump himself spoke at a Georgia rally to rehash a gallery of unfounded claims.

In the skit, Strong also mocked how Carone mispronounced “affidavit.” She called it “after David.” “That’s right. David signed, and I signed right after David.”

She then has a confrontation with one of the state senators, telling them, “I have been threatened. My kids have been threatened. My kids have been threatening me and I am threatening them right back.”

As Giuliani, McKinnon told the lawmakers, “You want evidence? OK, well today I have brought before you highly intelligent, barely intoxicated individuals who are all eyewitnesses. And after hearing their you’re going to say, ‘Wow, Rudy is right and he is getting smarter and more respected every day.’ ”

The skit ends with Giuliani saying, “I would say the defense rests, but we will never rest. Not until this election is overturned, or until I get a full pardon and $10 million in cash. And if you like what you saw here today, we’re having a press conference at the Ritz Carlton Plumbing and Heating Supply Company, right off I-94 between a dirty movie theater and a crematorium. Pets not only allowed, they’re required.”

See the complete cold open above.

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