SNL: Will Ferrell's Gordon Sondland Crashes Trump's Impeachment Presser

Michael Ausiello

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The impeachment inquiry against President Trump was once again grist for the Saturday Night Live mill, with Lorne Michaels tapping former cast member (and current host) Will Ferrell to play the hearing’s latest breakout star, U.S. Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland.

Instead of specifically sending up this week’s public hearings (as it did last week), SNL opted instead to focus its cold open on the impromptu presser Trump (Alec Baldwin, reprising his role) held on the White House lawn, during which he dismissed Sondland’s claims of quid pro quo while also denying even knowing him. (SNL had particular fun with Trump’s Sharpie-drenched cheat sheet, with the prez explaining, “I love black magic markers; they smell like licorice.”)

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At the end of the sketch, Ferrell’s Sondland crashed the press conference and agreed with Trump to “keep the quid pro quo on the low-low,” before addressing the press directly with this plea: “I want to go on the record and say you’ve got to lay off my boy. Everyone loves his ass: Ukraine, Russia, they’ll do anything for this man. I know, I asked.”

This is the second week in a row that SNL kicked things off with an impeachment-related sketch. Last week, the show remade the inquiry was presented as a twisty daytime serial starring Cecily Strong as former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, Mikey Day as Ohio representative Jim Jordan and special guest Jon Hamm as “career diplomat” Bill Taylor.

Watch the cold open above, then read our complete recap of the Ferrell-hosted episode here.

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