Saturday Night Live’s cold open poked fun at Rep Jim Jordan this weekend following his disastrous unsuccessful bid to become the next speaker of the House of Representatives.
In the skit, Mikey Day’s Mr Jordan was distraught after his bid for House speaker failed for a third time.
“How did I lose? This is chaos,” Day’s Mr Jordan said. “Some of us are here to actually serve the American people. All I want to do is get Congress back to work so I can shut it down again.”
Day was joined by Bowen Yang playing Rep George Santos, who then came in to try and “cheer” up Mr Jordan.
Yang’s Mr Santos was seen walking in holding a baby that “no one seems to know” why he has, before saying: “I just wanted to say how sorry I am, but I want you to know I voted for you and get this, so did Shoshanna Loggins.”
Day’s Mr Jordan then asked “Who’s that?” to which Yang’s Mr Santos responded: “Also, me.”
Day’s Mr Jordan went on to answer a call from Chloe Fineman’s Rep Lauren Boebert. “Look, things are going exactly as planned,” she said.
“Just keep running for speaker, and even if you don’t win, great, the government shuts down, and we blow this whole thing up.”
She then told Day’s Mr Jordan “I gotta go. I’m at a theater seeing Aladdin” – a referenced to a recent incident where the congresswoman was escorted out of a theatre performance of Beetlejuice for vaping, groping her date and “causing a disturbance”.
The last scene saw James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump arrive.
Seeing him, Day’s Mr Jordan told him: “I’m so glad you’re here. You endorsed me, and then you just kind of disappeared.”
“Yeah. Well, that’s because I prefer the Jordans who win,” Johnson’s Trump said, adding: “The great Michael Jordan or the even greater Jordan Sparks.”
He added: “People are saying that I would make a great speaker. It’s true, but sadly I’ll be too busy campaigning, travelling from city to city, visiting their beautiful courtrooms, you know, great things for the courts, doing great things for the court.”
Mr Trump is currently facing four criminal indictments, at both the federal level and in state cases in New York and Georgia.
Day’s Mr Jordan then questioned why his bid for speaker was unsuccessful.
James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump and Mikey Day’s Jim Jordan— (Will Heath/NBC)
“This is all just so frustrating, sir. I did exactly what you would do: intimidation, threats. Why didn’t it work?” he asked Johnson’s Mr Trump.
“Because frankly, you’re not me,” said Johnson’s Mr Trump.
“You’re no fun. I’m hilarious. I’m a creep. I’m a weirdo. What the hell is he doing here, you know? They don’t play creep live anymore, do they? You notice that? … Everybody else does it, but they don’t do it.”
He continued: “You can’t give up. All right, you can’t give up because this is America. It’s the most beautiful country in the world, filled with some terrible people, some awful people, some of the worst people you’ve ever seen. But we love it. What a beautiful nation it is. What a wonderful nation. Not so much in terms of the people, the people are very bad and weird. We love our country. What an awful place it is.”
As Day’s Mr Jordan went on to kick off the rest of Saturday’s SNLshow, the skit ended with Johnson’s Mr Trump stopping him, saying: “Hold on, that’s not for losers.”
The skit came after Mr Jordan was dropped as the GOP nominee for speaker after he failed to win enough support from his own party in three separate votes.
Mr Jordan, a right-wing firebrand whose history of obstruction made his brand too toxic for a critical mass of moderate Republicans to stomach him as a replacement for former speaker Kevin McCarthy, lost a secret ballot election during a GOP conference meeting on Friday.
His candidacy for the speakership had been opposed by more than a dozen members on a first vote in the House chamber on Tuesday, with the ranks of his opponents growing on two subsequent roll-call votes.
Nine Republicans have now entered the race for the top job in Congress.
