2:44 am - November 17, 2025
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Saturday Night Live‘s cold open began with press reporters pestering a synthetic Karoline Leavitt and President Donald Trump about the Epstein files.
Ashley Padilla depicted Leavitt at the White Home press instruction while James Austin Johnson went back to his typical post as Trump, where the 2 took concerns from reporters surrounding the subject, particularly in referral to new emails that were launched today.
” Okay, well I believe we certainly require to begin with the 20,000 Epstein e-mails,” Chloe Fineman stated as CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “Why does President Trump’s name appear in many of them?”.
” You understand you draw, right?” Padilla’s Leavitt stated. “Look, the only thing these e-mails show is that President Trump not did anything incorrect. If anything, his criminal activity was caring excessive.”
Johnson’s Trump later on struck the phase, keeping in mind, “I am concealing nearly absolutely nothing, simply enough to make it exceptionally suspicious. However let me ask you a concern: If there was something incriminating about me in the files, then why would I cover them up?”
One press reporter addressed, “Wait, isn’t that precisely why you would cover them up?” Johnson’s Trump continued, “Okay, let me go once again. If I was innocent, would not I simply launch all the files?”
” Yes!” another press reporter responded, as Johnson’s Trump described that the “hardly understood” Jeffrey Epstein.
” Jeffrey Epstein, I hardly understood the guy, alright, as evidenced by the countless photos of us together dancing and grinding our teeth at different celebrations, constantly leering and pointing at something simply off video camera, most likely a book we’re thrilled to check out,” he stated.
” Okay, what about the particular e-mail where Epstein stated that Trump was the pet that hasn’t barked?” one reporter asked, which triggered Johnson’s Trump to react, “Okay, to start with, I’m not a pet. I’m more of a cub or potentially an otter. Absolutely not a twink. I believe that’s clear, not a twink, right. Possibly twunk. You understand, gays have words for whatever, right?”
He continued, “2nd, I believed Megyn Kelly made a great point today. She stated Epstein’s not a pedophile. Terrific thing to simply state out of no place. Terrific task, Megyn.”
” So, you stated you kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago, however he stated he was quote, ‘never ever a member,'” kept in mind the last press reporter.
” Yeah, I stated I kicked Jeffrey out due to the fact that he was a pedophile, however then I likewise stated I didn’t understand he did anything incorrect. So it’s type of tough to square that circle till you recognize that Trump exists throughout lots of timelines,” Johnson’s Trump reacted. “It’s the Trump multiverse theory. We simply occur to be residing in the worst possible one.”
Later On, Glen Powell performed his opening monologue, where he shared a nostalgic story about his ties to the late night series. He described that he was expected to host SNL 4 years earlier, however the chance was shelved due to the COVID-19 pandemic moving back the release of Leading Weapon: Radical
When Powell at first found out that he was expected to look like host, “I was on a patio with my household, and we simply all lost our minds,” he stated, including that a UPS chauffeur reached their home at the specific very same time.
” We were leaping up and down commemorating, and a UPS chauffeur occurred to be providing a plan at that specific very same minute, and he resembled, ‘What is going on?'” Powell stated. “And I resembled, ‘I’m hosting SNL,’ and he resembled, ‘Are you major?'”
Powell and his household snapped an image with the UPS chauffeur to celebrate the minute. “However then my dream got eliminated. Leading Weapon got postponed due to the fact that of COVID, so SNL needed to take their deal back,” he described.
” So I didn’t wind up hosting, which suggests for 4 years, this UPS chauffeur was simply walking around stating, ‘Glenn Powell is a phony,'” Powell joked. “So now I’m here hosting. It feels incredible. However what feels even much better is showing to this UPS chauffeur that I am not insane.”
Powell then exposed that he flew the UPS chauffeur, whose name is Mitch, out to go to SNL to guarantee him he wasn’t “a phony.” He brought Mitch up on phase, and the 2 snapped an image together to additional commemorate his dream ending up being real.
” Look, I needed to wait my whole life, plus 4 years to be here, however if I have actually found out anything, it is that the very best things in life do not occur overnight,” Powell stated. “And nobody understands that much better than UPS!”
Saturday night marked Powell’s hosting launching, though he formerly made a short cameo throughout Sydney Sweeney’s March 2024 SNL look, where she joked about reports of a love in between the 2 in the middle of their Anybody However You press trip.
The Running Guy star acted as the last SNL host of November along with musical visitor (and current Grammy candidate) Olivia Dean, following the month’s previous leads in Miles Teller and Nikki Glaser. Other hosts of season 51 up until now consist of Bad Bunny, Amy Poehler and Sabrina Carpenter.
More to come.
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