In the third week of Saturday Night Live’s 44th season, the series opened with a spoof of one of this week’s biggest news moments — Kanye West’s much-talked-about visit to the White House to meet with Donald Trump.
Playing MAGA-hat-wearing West was SNL’s Chris Redd, and Alec Baldwin returned to play Trump. Kenan Thompson rounded out the sketch’s main players with his impersonation of football great Jim Brown.
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The cold open began with Baldwin’s Trump giving a brief disclaimer that West’s appearance was “in no way a publicity stunt” but a “serious, private conversation between three friends — plus 50 reporters with cameras.”
With that, Baldwin’s Trump introduces Redd’s West, who wastes no time jumping into the real West’s bizarre and often times nonsensical rant on Thursday.
“First let me begin with the idea that time is a myth… infinite amounts of universe… I’m a prisoner in a different dimension,” Redd rambled, adding, “Have I lost anyone so far?” At which point nearly everyone, including Trump, raises their hands.
A voiceover for Baldwin’s Trump even ponders at one point, “This guy might be cuckoo. I’ve been in a room with Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong-un, and they made a lot more sense.”
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Later in the episode, West’s meeting with Trump was once again addressed in a special Weekend Update segment called “Really!?! With Seth Meyers, Colin Jost and Michael Che.”
Meyers, returning to his old seat, started the segment by saying, “Really? Don’t you have better things to do? And by the way, when I say that, I’m really not sure which of you I’m talking to. The only place those two should meet is in group. They should be in the basement of a church and a dude with an earring and a leather bracelet should be saying, ‘I’m so glad you both decided to come back.’”
Jost joked that you could tell a lot by how each of the men in the Oval Office meeting prepared. “Kanye prepared by learning every fact in the world backwards, while Trump prepared by clearing his desk of any valuables,” he said.
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And Che admitted he kind of understood a lot of what West was trying to say.
“It sounds like somebody told him something really smart, and he just retold it really, really wrong,” Che said. “Like when I was a kid and the landlord showed up, and my mother would say, ‘Tell him I’m not here.’ And then I’d say, ‘My mama says she’s not here!’”
West recently appeared on SNL as a musical guest, where he memorably performed “I Love It” with Lil Pimp (dressed as bottles) and after which he delivered a pro-Trump speech.
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