‘SNL’ Weekend Update Took On Biden’s Many Headaches As Well As Melania And The Trump Kids

This weekend’s SNL was hosted by Willem Dafoe, one of the great character actors, who was recently seen in movies big (Spider-Man: No Way Home) and small (The Card Counter, The French Dispatch). The night was usurped not by a fellow performer but by a football legend: Peyton Manning, who swung by Weekend Update to, of course, confess his love for Emily in Paris. But while the former quarterback couldn’t stop talking about something frivolous, the segment’s anchors kept things topical.

Colin Jost kicked things off by outlining President Joe Biden’s many, many headaches, among them a dodgy economy and a possible war between Russia and Ukraine (parodied in the show’s Cold Open). “Stocks are plummeting and there’s a threat of a land war in Europe, so it looks like Democrats were right: Joe Biden is the next FDR,” he cracked.

There’s also the pushback Biden is receiving from Republicans over who he’ll choose to replace departing Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer on the bench. “President Biden promised to nominate the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, but I hope it’s not because he wants to sniff a new type of hair,” Michael Che said as a picture appeared showing Biden’s many touchy-feely pictures with women.

But it wasn’t all Biden jokes. They also bashed the other side. When Jost talked about Ukraine officials trying to calm the public’s nerves over a potential invasion by claiming “panic is the sister of failure,” Jost said, “I thought Ivanka was the sister of failure.”

Then there’s Glen Youngkin, the newly sworn-in governor of Virginia, who set up a hotline for parents to rat out teachers they think are teaching Critical Race Theory, which isn’t taught in public schools anyway. “You know you’re racist when you call the cops about a Black character in a book,” he said. He then did a mock phone call. “Yeah, hi, I’d like to report a suspicious Black man rafting with a young white hostage,” he said over an image showing the cover of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

There were also digs at Mitch McConnell, Peloton, Melania, and McDonald’s weird menu hacks, including the terrifying new “Land, Air & Sea” sandwich. You can watch Weekend Update jokes in the videos above and below.