Saturday Night Live brought back almost all of the 2024 election principals for its cold open, in a spoof of this week’s vice presidential debate between JD Vance (Bowen Yang) and Tim Walz (Jim Gaffigan).
The riffs were on the most memorable moments from an otherwise inconsequential 90 minute debate, including the moment when both candidates were asked by CBS News moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan about some of their embarrassing past claims.
“Senator Vance, you called Donald Trump America’s Hitler. Do you regret that?”
“The context matters. I meant that as a compliment,” Vance replied.
Then it was on to Walz. “Governor Walz. You claimed you were in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square massacre when you were home in Minnesota. Can you explain that?”
Walz answered, “I think what happened is I went to Epcot. You can go around the whole world, and I had a couple in the Germany section, and I thought I went to China. Anyway, I’m a knucklehead.”
In the skit, Kamala Harris (Maya Rudolph) and Doug Emhoff (Andy Samberg) are fretfully watching the debate play out on their TV, with the vice president getting particularly rattled when her running mate starts bonding with Vance.
Eventually, Harris and Emhoff are visited by President Joe Biden (Dana Carvey) to remind them that all of this won’t matter much, as no one can remember vice presidents. “Who the hell was Obama’s VP?”
The sketch was a return of almost all of lineup that appeared in the season opener, save for James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump, with indications that Rudolph, Samberg, Gaffigan and Carvey would be returning in the remaining weeks until the election.
More to come.
