TODAY was thrilled to welcome Hillary Clinton to the show this morning!
Just kidding. But we did have her late-night body double, "Saturday Night Live's" Kate McKinnon, who sat down with Willie Geist to chat about the show's upcoming season, her hilarious family and "Masterminds" character named “Jandice.”
McKinnon was hot off a big night, stepping once again into Clinton’s shoes (and pantsuit) for the highly awaited parody of last Monday’s Presidential debate.
The cold open, which also featured an eerily spot-on Alec Baldwin in the role of Donald Trump, didn’t disappoint. After a “braggadocious” opening statement, Baldwin’s Trump attempted to leave the debate floor two minutes in, before declaring his microphone broken — but not without an accompanying conspiracy theory.
“She broke it. With Obama. She and Obama stole my microphone. They took it to Kenya. They took my microphone to Kenya, and they broke it, and now it's broken,” he muttered.
The sketch also made light of Trump’s sniffing, his steady stream of manterruptions (“wrong,” “shut up,” “wrong, wrong, wrong”) and his creative pronunciation of “China” (if we had to take a swing at the spelling … JYUY-nah, maybe?)
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“I have the best judgment and the best temperament. She’s the one with the bad temperament,” declared Baldwin-as-Trump. “She’s always screaming, she’s constantly lying, her hair is crazy, her face is completely orange except for around the eyes where it’s white, and when she stops talking her mouth looks like a tiny little butthole,” said Baldwin-as-Trump.
Clinton took a few hits of her own, with McKinnon poking fun at her famous shimmy, her stiff demeanor, and her seemingly random anecdote about Alicia Machado (“a strong, beautiful political prop that I almost forgot to mention.”)
“If you don’t elect me, I will continue to run for President until the day I die. And I will never die,” McKinnon-as-Clinton deadpanned to the camera.
Related: Kate McKinnon: I’ll be channeling Hillary Clinton as I watch debate
“Just to remind everyone at home, this was the presidential debate,” said Michael Che as debate moderator Lester Holt.
If there’s a reason to stay informed during an election cycle — you know, besides all the obvious ones — it’s to appreciate the parody that springs up in response. (And let’s be honest: those of us following the election cycle could use a little humor right about now.)
The rest of the season premiere was heavy on the political jokes, with host Margot Robbie even fact-checking her own opening monologue.
The recurring “Family Fued” segment pitted Team Trump (campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, Ivanka Trump, Chris Christie, and Vladimir Putin) against Team Clinton (Bill Clinton, Sarah Silverman, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Bernie Sanders). A highlight came when Larry David’s Sanders described Clinton as “the prune juice of the election — she might not look that appetizing, but if you don’t take her now, you’re going to be clogged with crap for a very long time.”
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The prune motif came up again during Weekend Update, when the anchors compared the two candidates to an empty fridge that you keep opening hoping to find something tasty, but instead only find "prunes or Tang."
The way-too-real metaphors kept coming when they compared Clinton to “an iPhone 7 — feels like it’s kind of being forced on us, and it’s not necessarily an improvement. But we also don’t want the Samsung Galaxy, which could explode at any minute.”
Both candidates have kept mum on the episode, though we did get this ominous tweet from The Donald yesterday.
Yeah, okay.
Performances by The Weeknd and a few other lighthearted if forgettable sketches rounded out the night.