NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” took aim at former President Donald Trump’s bizarre trip to the site of the devastating train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio during this week’s cold open.
James Austin Johnson played Trump, mimicking his rambling speeches while holding a press conference to check in on the people of East Palestine after they were “abandoned by Biden” who is off “on spring break in Ukraine with his friend Zelensky in the T-shirt. Very disrespectful.”
Johnson’s Trump set off the briefing by incorrectly pronouncing the town of East Palestine, instead pronouncing it like the state of Palestine.
“Hello, it’s wonderful to be here in East Palestine… not a great name,” he quipped, later adding, “But I’m here and I brought hats. Cameras and hats. Because it’s terrible what’s happening here.”
Johnson’s Trump then recalled meeting a farmer who told him, “Sir we have nothing to eat because our dirt is poison.”
“And I said, ‘Well what are you doing eating the dirt? Don’t eat the dirt, folks! You should be eating the cold McDonald’s I bought you,” he said, referencing how the former president bought a “nice array” of McDonald’s for the town’s first responders during his visit.
The comedian then mimicked how Trump will go on long-winded tangents, making mention of both East Palestine’s “colorful” river and Rihanna’s Super Bowl performance.
He then focused on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who arrived in East Palestine a day after Trump after critics claimed he waited too long to visit.
This is an excerpt only. Read the full story here.
