Saturday Night Live is known for its celebrity impersonations, especially the political impersonations. Since the beginning, the late-night variety sketch series has kept the country informed on politics in a very unique way, and that hasn’t stopped on the 2025 TV schedule, including when it comes to James Austin Johnson’s scary-good impression of President Donald Trump. As the election for New York City mayor approached, SNL hopped on the bandwagon and brought out some big guns for the cold open in Saturday’s episode, which included Ramy Youssef as candidate Zohran Mamdani. And the actual Mamdani had quite the reaction.
Sketches for Season 51 have been a hit or a miss so far, but this one wasn't so bad. In anticipation of the most-talked-about mayoral election this year, SNL’s latest cold open brought on host Miles Teller as Andrew Cuomo, Shane Gillis as Curtis Sliwa, and Youssef as Mamdani. Via NBC New York, while campaigning around the city, Mamdani was asked what he thought of the SNL sketch, and he took it like an absolute champ:
