Saturday Night Live released a skit not even a day after President Donald Trump announced his preemptive attack against Iran. The short skit is impressive in that it hits too close to home.
“Good evening and happy World War 3 to all who celebrate,” said James Austin Johnson, who has been portraying Trump since 2021. Johnson’s got Trump’s lazy voice and nearly incoherent way of speaking down to a tee.
“It’s me, Donald Trump, FIFA Peace Prize winner and Nobel Peace Prize taker.” He disses Trump for coveting peace prizes. The irony isn’t lost when even the Board of Peace, headed by Trump, is also trashed by Johnson.
“I launched this attack after me and my Board of Peace decided that we were bored of peace.” If this is how Trump decided on his attack on Iran, it wouldn’t be a surprise.
In a sing-song tune, Johnson’s Trump sang, “War! What is it good for? Distracting from the Epstein files!” More than a decade ago, most people would think that no sane leader would impulsively wage war to evade justice.
But after the release of the Epstein files, the lack of accountability for the many people involved has been damning. If Iran is a distraction, it’s surely one brutal ploy, as American lives are lost during a war they did not ask for. Trump formerly promoted himself as a peacemaker, after all.
“To all my MAGA voters who are upset and saying, ‘This is not what I voted for,’ well, you did. Don’t you know who I am?” Johnson quipped, and it would be hilarious—if Johnson’s portrayal were not so unsettlingly accurate.
Pete Hegseth as the fall guy
Johnson also joked that Trump will be blaming DoW Secretary Pete Hegseth once the war fails. On the stage entered Colin Jost, who portrayed Hegseth. Jost, at first glance, looked too kempt for a guy trying to spoof a man known for his on-the-job day-drinking habits.
But then he raised his fists to the camera with ‘FURY EPIC’ tattooed on them, a reference to Trump’s Operation Epic Fury. There’s never been a show of being drunk on camera better than this one.
“I did them in the wrong order, but you get it! And those are my least problematic tattoos,” Jost said in Hegseth’s rowdy voice. The DoW secretary’s tattoos are allegedly connected to white supremacist movements—he denies it.
Jost ends his lines by saying that Americans should be thanking the Trump administration. SNL didn’t have to take more than a day to produce this skit—not when the jokes write themselves.
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