Brow Beat

In Season Finale, SNL Suggests Trump Presidency Could End Over the Summer

Screenshot/NBC

After the crazy week in Washington there was no shortage of material for Saturday Night Live’s final episode of the season to take one final dig at Donald Trump and his administration. But instead of taking the bait, the show took a different tack in what looked very much like a swan song for a presidency that is increasingly engulfed in scandal.

Alec Baldwin as Trump sat at the piano on the main stage and began performing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. One by one he was joined by other cast members and their memorable impressions of administration members that helped make what many have described as a turnaround season for the show. All the big names were there: Kate McKinnon’s Kellyanne Conway, Beck Bennett’s Mike Pence, Cecily Strong’s Melania Trump, Aidy Bryant’s Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Alex Moffatt’s Eric Trump, Mikey Day’s Donald Trump Jr., and, the Grim Reaper (aka Steve Bannon) all joined in on the singing. Even Scarlett Johansson made a guest appearance as Ivanka Trump. The only one missing from the wistful party was Melissa McCarthy’s Sean Spicer.

If the bit had a familiar ring, it’s because the first episode of SNL after the presidential election also began with the Cohen song. But on that Nov. 12 episode, it was McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton who was at the piano in an uncharacteristically serious opener. (Cohen had died a week earlier.) That performance ended with McKinnon’s Clinton singing: “I’m not giving up, and neither should you. And live from New York, it’s Saturday night.”

In yesterday’s episode the end had a dramatically different ring to it. “I’m not giving up, because I didn’t do anything wrong,” Baldwin as Trump said after the song ended. “But I can’t speak for these people.”