NBC’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) kicked off its 47th season gently mocking high-profile Democrats such as President Joe Biden, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and several lawmakers in Congress.
“How was everybody’s summer? Mine was bad. Not Cuomo bad, but definitely not Afghanistan good,” began actor James Austin Johnson, who was announced as a new SNL cast member just last week. After President Biden’s inauguration in January, the show did not feature any impersonations of the politician for at least a whole month — a move widely mocked as partisan cowardice.
Johnson’s lines were a nod to both Cuomo’s resignation in August — in the wake of an investigation that found he sexually harassed multiple women — as well as Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, which resulted in 13 U.S. service members killed, Taliban control of the Middle Eastern country, and a botched drone strike, which killed ten civilians, including at least seven children.
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“Everyone keeps razzing me about that drone strike, but on the bright side, I went the entire summer without falling down the stairs once,” Johnson/Biden continued.
“And hey, Broadway’s back, that’s exciting, right? So is the Taliban. Win some, lose some,” he said, noting that Biden ended America’s costly war in Afghanistan by leaving the country exactly as the U.S. had found it 20 years ago: under Taliban rule.
Johnson was then joined by actors Cecily Strong as Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), Aidy Bryant as Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Ego Nwodim as Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Pete Davidson as Cuomo, Melissa Villasenor as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Alex Moffat — who played Biden after the previous season’s lengthy delay — as Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
“Yes, it’s me, the Cruella of the Met Gala, I wore a dress that said ‘Tax the Rich,’ then spent all night partying with the rich. Oops,” Villasenor said, referring to when Ocasio-Cortez showed up to the $35,000 per ticket event wearing an ultra-fancy designer dress with the message “Tax the Rich” emblazoned on the back.
The SNL skit went on to mock the Democrats for being unable to come together on a spending bill, pathetically presenting Omar and AOC as reasonable and asking for compromise, while Manchin and Sinema are mercilessly mocked as selfish and out of touch.
Then Davidson, impersonating Cuomo, entered the scene to reassure everyone that “it’s going to be more than okay.”
“Take it from me, Governor-ish Andrew Cuomo,” Davidson said. “Us democrats have had each other’s backs no matter what. We’re like one big Italian family.”
“And you know what Italians like to do? Hug and kiss and run their fingers up each other’s backs,” he continued. “So let’s all come together — well, bad choice of words there — and get this bill passed today.”
“Just like me, it deserves a second chance, and a third chance, and up to at least 11 chances,” Davidson added. “Oh, and I want to plug my new book. My first one was called ‘Lessons in Leadership,’ and my new one is called, ‘Whoops.'”
Before Cuomo’s demise, Hollywood had praised the then-governor of New York, and even gave him an Emmy for his briefings on the Chinese coronavirus. Some celebrities also bizarrely referred to themselves as “Cuomosexuals.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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