The narrative “SNL” pursued – that the braggadocious Donald Trump had enough self-awareness to poke fun at himself – has already been told, both in his appearance on Stephen Colbert in September and in 2004 when Trump hosted “SNL” for the first time. It also surpassed previous “Saturday Night Live” high ratings held by a 2012 episode which was hosted by Charles Barkley and included Kelly Clarkson as a musical guest.
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Other presidential candidates were represented by cast members on the show, but the candidates themselves generally stuck to more serious issues this weekend.
Trump appeared in a variety of skits, amid protests from Latino activists who had demanded that the network bar him from the show because of his controversial remarks about immigrants and his stated position that he would deport millions of undocumented residents. “Trump’s a racist! I heard if I yelled that they’d give me $5,000″.
Demonstrators marched through the streets of New York to protest Donald Trump’s views on immigration hours before he hosts “Saturday Night Live”. Trump is expected to host SNL on November 7th, but protesters plan to deliver a petition, with 460,000 signatures, calling on NBC Studios to drop Trump.
The show made reference to the controversy when comedian Larry David, in an obvious send-up, called out “Donald Trump is a racist” to an apparently unfazed Trump.
Taran Killam, this season’s resident Trump impersonator, said that “the show’s gotten better by about 2 billion percent” now that Trump is on. “Who is that?” asked Trump, glaring at the audience.
“As a business man I can fully respect that”, Trump said. “Trump’s a racist.” The actor explained to Trump he interrupted the monologue because someone offered to pay him $5000 if he did. Despite the dislike for the presidential candidate, the episode he hosted in received even higher ratings than the show’s season premiere with Hillary Clinton, another presidential candidate, hosted.
His answer: “I had nothing better to do”. NBC severed ties with Trump, but a thaw followed.
However, despite the huge rating Trump generated, many pundits are not too keen on the “SNL” episode.
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Trump has been front and center at many of her father’s GOP debates in the past few months. When the camera’s focus returned to Trump, he showed that he was unaffected by it. So who is the joke really aimed at?
