‘S.N.L.': Trumpeting Tariffs and Predicting a ‘Great' Depression

New York Times

06-04-2025

It's not as reliable a metric as, say, the Dow Jones industrial average, but one sign that the U.S. economy is in an unusual place is when 'Saturday Night Live' needs someone from its cast to play the secretary of commerce.
In the opening sketch of this weekend's broadcast (hosted by Jack Black and featuring the musical guests Elton John and Brandi Carlile) the brief part of Howard Lutnick went to Andrew Dismukes. But center stage was given to James Austin Johnson in his recurring role as President Trump — this time, recreating the speech from the Rose Garden where Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on Wednesday. (An introductory 'S.N.L.' voice-over declared that, 'like everything else so far in his presidency, it was a total home run.')
In his version of the speech, Johnson called 'tariff' his favorite word (because it was 'short for tariff-ic idea') and said that tariffs would be the backbone of his 'incredible plan' for the economy.
Johnson added, 'It's actually even better than a plan because it's a series of random numbers. Like the numbers on the computer screen in 'Severance.' You have no idea what the hell they mean.'
He vowed he would MAWA — Make America Wealthy Again — although before that, there could be another phase, Johnson said. 'We're going to do MAGDA. Make America Great Depression Again. You know what? It'll be gr — it'll be better than great. It'll be a fantastic, unbelievable Depression, the likes of which you've never seen before.'
He added that this Depression would 'be so great, we'll be the ones eating the cats and the dogs.'
Presented by Dismukes with a large cardboard placard that turned out to be a page from a Cheesecake Factory menu, Johnson then was handed another board detailing his tariff system.
'No country is safe from my tariffs,' Johnson said. 'I even put tariffs on an island that is uninhabited by humans.' Reflecting on Heard and McDonald Islands, Johnson said, 'Ooh, McDonald Island. I'd like to visit there.' He added, 'Can you imagine that? A Big Mac in a hula skirt, ooh la la.'
Holding up a card with an artist's rendering of that very image, he said, 'Get me to God's country, right?' (This was, of course, a reference to a social media post by the country musician Morgan Wallen after his hasty exit from the 'S.N.L.' stage at last weekend's good nights.)
Johnson complained about the state of trade with nations like South Africa, lamenting, 'They've never even sent us one good thing.'
'What about me?' asked Mike Myers, the 'S.N.L.' alum, entering the scene to once again play the billionaire Elon Musk.
Removing a Cheesehead hat, Myers explained, 'That was from when I tried to buy the election in Wisconsin. I'm an idiot. I should have just bought Wisconsin.'
'Suddenly, no one likes Tesla cars,' Myers said. 'So I asked myself why and then I answered myself: because of me.' He went on to play a video that introduced a new Tesla that he described as 'the first electric car in history to be fully self-vandalizing.'
That soon yielded a response from the real-life Musk, who wrote in a post on his X social media site, 'SNL hasn't been funny in a long time. They are their own parody.'
Stagecraft of the week
This was a big week for the legitimate theater on 'S.N.L.': the silent cameos from the 'Glengarry Glen Ross' stars Bill Burr and Kieran Culkin, seen sitting in the studio audience during Black's monologue; the 'Peter Pan'-style wirework that supported Black and Sarah Sherman (as well as Carlile and Bowen Yang) in a musical number about a couple having sex for the first time. And for students of history, there was this sketch imagining the very first play performed in ancient Greece, circa 500 B.C., for chiton-clad viewers (including Black, Dismukes, Mikey Day and Chloe Fineman) couldn't understand the concept of a fourth wall and kept talking back to the players onstage. As Dismukes explained the proposition, 'The poster simply said, 'Tonight at 7 p.m., come watch a book.' Sophocles, Aeschylus, you have been roasted.
Weekend Update jokes of the week
Over at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on President Trump's tariff announcement.
Jost began:
Che continued:
Weekend Update desk segment of the week
Following an announcement by the White House Correspondents Association that it had canceled a planned performance by the comedian Amber Ruffin at the organization's annual dinner, Ego Nwodim said at the Weekend Update desk that she should be allowed to perform at the dinner instead.
Nwodim went on to deliver a portion of her routine — in the voice of her 'stand-up persona' — which consisted mostly of jokes about the food at the dinner. (For example: 'They talking about they serving me some seared Alaskan halibut. So I said, 'Halibut you throw that mess in the trash, sucker.'')
But Nwodim's bit about Senator Cory Booker's 25-hour speech yielded an unexpected response from the 'S.N.L.' crowd. 'Cory Booker out here with his filibuster,' Nwodim said. 'Shoot, I had my fill of busters, 'cause these men ain't what?' Audience members shouted back a word that we can't print here. (The audio portion of the audience response has since been muted in a version of this sketch posted online.) While Jost and Che laughed, shrugged and hid their faces, Nwodim told the crowd, 'Lorne going to be mad at y'all.'
The F.C.C. had not commented as of Sunday morning.