Throughout its history, SNL hasn't avoided the portrayal of those in the political space. That hols true now with Jim Carrey appearing as President Joe Biden. Alec Baldwin was also tasked with appearing as Donald Trump on the sketch show. As we'll reveal in the following, Donald Trump wasn't exactly thrilled with the sketch involving himself, and he voiced concerns on Twitter. Surprisingly, former President Barack Obama chimed in on Trump's tweet, calling it problematic that a future President would take exception to such content. We're also going to take a closer look at Lorne Michaels' relationship with Trump, and how things changed during Donald's Presidential run. Some of the former cast was not pleased with a few of the suggested changes.
Donald Trump Was Not Amused By Alec Baldwin's SNL Skit And Took To Twitter With His Reaction
It is rather common at this point, SNL poking fun at a person in the world of politics. That has always held true, whether it be Sarah Palin, or those in charge of the US like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. It truly brought out some of the best impersonations ever.
Alec Baldwin was tasked with appearing as Donald Trump. During his skit, Baldwin made fun of Trump's plan to build a wall in order to keep immigrants out.
Baldwin said in the sketch, “We need wall. We have a tremendous amount of drugs coming in through the southern border, or the ‘brown line’ as many people have asked me not to call it."
“You all see why I gotta fake this emergency, right? I have to because I want to. It’s really simple. We have a problem. Drugs are coming into this country through no wall. Wall works, wall makes safe. You don’t have to be smart to understand that – in fact it’s even easier to understand if you’re not that smart.”
As expected, Trump wasn't happy with the moment. He let his displeasure be known via Twitter.
The 2019 tweet got a reaction out of many, including former President Barack Obama.
Barack Obama Roasted Donald Trump For Taking To Twitter And Giving A Reaction Over The Skit
It became a common theme throughout his run as President, Donald Trump taking to Twitter and delivering messages on what he disagreed with. According to Barack Obama, this type of behavior was problematic, and not fitting with someone who planned on running a country.
Obama revealed, “As Hillary points out, anybody that you can bait with a tweet is not someone you can trust with nuclear weapons. Anybody who is upset about a ‘Saturday Night Live’ skit, you don’t want in charge of nuclear weapons.”
Obama continued on, unable to understand how something of the sort could bother Trump.
“No, I’m serious. This is a guy who, like, tweets, ‘They should cancel “Saturday Night Live.” I don’t like how Alec Baldwin’s imitating me.’ Really? I mean, that’s the thing that bothers you and you want to be President of the United States?”
As most are aware by now, Trump ended up winning the race for President beating out Hillary Clinton. The moment caused some changes behind the scenes, particularly with SNL and Lorne Michaels.
Lorne Michaels Apparently Spoke To The SNL Cast About Content Related To Donald Trump
Speaking alongside Deadline, Taran Killam made quite the reveal. It is said that Lorne Michaels attempted to reshape the perception of Trump, attempting to make the President likable. Suddenly, there were boundaries regarding Trump content.
“Lorne was being so specific about what we could and couldn’t say about [Trump], and he was dictating a lot of the settings. Lorne was like, ‘It’ll be too old news by then, and you know, you don’t want to vilify him. He’s like any New York taxi driver. I know him, I’ve seen him around at parties for years and years, and he just says whatever it is he’s thinking. And that’s his thing. But you have to find a way in that makes him likable.’”
Anthony Jeselnik also voiced concerns in the past, particularly when Trump got to host an episode of SNL. “It was two rich guys helping each other out. I don’t know how I would have dealt with it if I was on the show. I found it to be, quite frankly, revolting," the comedian revealed.
Despite the concerns, SNL clearly did not cool down on content related to Trump - nor does that seem to be the plan pertaining to other political figures.
