Saturday Night Live mocks Trump's executive orders in a hilarious sketch: ‘Recession will now be called recess’
Saturday Night Live hilariously parodied President Trump's executive orders. The sketch featured James Austin Johnson as Trump, signing a series of ridiculous orders with humorous commentary.
A recent “Saturday Night Live” sketch offered a hilarious parody of President Trump signing “executive orders”; including one that added to the absurdity of substances saturated in ambiguity, by changing the term “recession” to “recess.” The whole cold open involved James Austin Johnson playing Trump offering a mix of performing satire with ludicrous comments and exaggerated physical behavior, reminiscing on his first 100 days back in office.
In selecting the executive orders for parody, various aspects of cultural norms and relationships were mocked (e.g., no Columbus Day, etc.). During the course of the parody, Trump, as played by Johnson, signed an executive order that changed the term “recession” to “recess.” This set-up for the parody continued with Trump's improvised humor, claiming, “Get ready for a historically long recess.”
SNL mocks Trump's 100 days as President
The cold open began with James Austin Johnson as Trump, thinking back to his first 100 days back in office. “Well, it’s been 100 years since I became president,” Johnson said, as Trump. “Excuse me, days. Wow, feels like longer.”
As Trump continued, he said, “People are saying what I’ve done so far has, by itself, helped people win elections, mostly in Canada,” in reference to the election of a Canadian prime minister.
He humorously recounted singed 147 executive orders, that had a range of topics from banning paper straws to taking funding from PBS, while referring to Elmo being “nabbed in an ice raid.”
Mikey Day, as Stephen Miller, brought Trump a mound of new executive orders to sign. These ranged from real to satirical orders like reinstating Columbus Day, to fictitious orders such as limiting the number of interracial couples in TV shows.
Trump, while commenting on the skit about TV shows, said, “It's just too many, right? You see them in the kitchen cooking a meal from Hello Fresh. He's got loafers on, she's got taut braids; you're like, where'd they meet, you know? What do they even talk about? This is insane.”
Later, Miller introduced an executive order to make it acceptable for a man in his 70s to date a woman in her 20s, joking about the relationship between football coach Bill Belichick and his girlfriend.
Marcello Hernández, as Marco Rubio, came on next as Trump signed an executive order “prohibiting Hispanic babies from getting their ears pierced.” While Trump claims that the order was Rubio's idea, Rubio said it was not.
Other parody mandates included pardoning J.K. Rowling and banning ghosts. The one that provided the most levity to the discussion was, the executive order that substituted the term “recession” for “recess.” Trump proclaimed to the world, “So, America, get ready for a historically long recess.” He shouted, “I call tetherball!”
