SNL's Season 45 Kicks Off with Trump Making Calls to Kanye West & More Over Impeachment Talks
Saturday Night Live kicked off its 45th season by poking fun at President Donald Trump during the cold opening.
At the start of Saturday night’s show, Alec Baldwin, who reprised his role as Trump, made numerous phone calls regarding the recent whistleblower scandal and his potential impeachment.
After speaking to Rudy Giuliani (Kate McKinnon), William Barr (Aidy Bryant), Mike Pence (Beck Bennett), Donald Trump Jr. (Mikey Day), Eric Trump (Alex Moffat), and Kim Jong-Un (Bowen Yang), he spoke with actor Liev Schreiber, who appeared as himself though Trump presumed he was speaking with his Showtime character Ray Donovan.
Then, he received a phone call from Kanye West, played by Chris Redd.
“Kanye, how ya been my man?” Baldwin’s Trump joked as he picked up the phone, to which Redd’s West responded, “A lot better bro, actually. You remember those pills I was supposed to take? It turns out I was supposed to take them every day, can you believe that?”
“That’s good, that’s good,” Baldwin said in his impression of Trump. Redd then nailed his West impersonation when he responded on the phone, “But actually that’s the reason I’m calling you. I don’t think we can be fam no more, fam.”
A post shared by Liev Schreiber (@lievschreiber) on Sep 28, 2019 at 9:29pm PDT
“What, why not?” he asked, and received an answer from Don King (Kenan Thompson), who took the phone out of “West’s” hand and said to the president “Only in America.”
“Don King! Oh, don’t tell me you dudes are partying without me. Is Rodman there and Tyson too?” Baldwin’s Trump asked, referencing Dennis Rodman and Mike Tyson.
Thompson’s King then joked, “Yeah, we were just having an emergency meeting of the black whack-a-doodles. And we all decided that this whole impeachment thing is hurting our brand.”
“Oh don’t bail on me now. I need my urbans,” Baldwin’s Trump said. “Kanye, just tell me who you want out of jail this time. ASAP Rocky again, or how about that little girl Teriyaki 69?”
“Look fam we gotta go. Say goodbye to the d—bag,” Redd’s character joked. Before hanging up, Thompson’s King joked, “Terrence Howard is up on the roof with an umbrella trying to prove that gravity don’t exist. Only in America.”
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SNL‘s season 45 premiere, hosted by Woody Harrelson, featured nearly all of its cast members returning (including new additions Chloe Fineman and Bowen Yang), except Pete Davidson, who joined in season 40, was noticeably absent from the sketches on Saturday night.
The NBC comedy series also opted not to mention the firing of recent hire Shane Gillis. The stand-up comedian was announced as a new featured player along with Fineman and Yang for the new season earlier this month, but was fired just four days later for resurfaced derogatory statements that he made on a podcast last year.
The premiere also featured a musical performance from Billie Eilish. The show has confirmed Taylor Swift as next week’s performer with Fleabag‘s Phoebe Waller-Bridge as the host.
Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC.
