‘SNL’ Cold Open: Donald Trump Issues a Bold Warning to Late-Night TV

The Saturday Night Live Season 51 premiere featured James Austin Johnson as President Donald Trump issuing a bold warning to late-night TV — after interrupting Colin Jost as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

On Saturday, October 4, the highly anticipated SNL cold open began with Jost as Hegseth addressing a “serious problem: Our military is gay as hell.” He added, “Thanks to failed liberal politics, our army has never been gayer. And yet, it’s also never been fatter.”

Jost continued to poke fun at Hegseth’s bizarre speech, later declaring, “No fuggos, no fatties, no facial hair, no body hair. Just hot, shredded, hairless men who are definitely not gay.”

Partway through, Johnson, as Trump, broke the fourth wall to interrupt. Jost had just finished saying that the U.S. is “facing the greatest  threat to freedom and democracy the world has ever known,” as he suddenly froze and “Trump” interjected, “Late-night TV!”

“I’m just here keeping my eye on SNL, making sure they don’t do anything too mean about me,” Johnston said. “And they better be careful, because I know late-night TV like the back of my hand.” The “POTUS” then held up his hand, showing the discoloring on the back of it that has never been addressed, before suddenly hiding his hand and telling people not to look.

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“They better be on their best behavior,” Johnson warned. “Otherwise, they’ll have to answer to my attack dog at the FCC, Brendan Carr.”

That’s when Mikey Day made a cameo as the FFC’s chairman as he danced across the screen to the song “Somebody’s Watching Me.”

Following pressure from Carr, ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Live! for six days after Jimmy Kimmel‘s remarks in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk‘s death. Kirk, 31, the founder of Turning Point USA, was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University on September 10.

On the September 15 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! Kimmel criticized the responses to Kirk’s death from Trump and his supporters. “We hit some new lows over the weekend,’ he said. “With the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

The late-night show then cut to a scene of a reporter asking Trump who he was coping after Kirk’s death, to which the POTUS said, “I think very good,” before changing the subject and talking about the construction of the White House ballroom.

“This is not how an adult grieves the murder of somebody he called a friend,” Kimmel pointed out. “This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish, OK?”

Ultimately, Jimmy Kimmel Live! returned to ABC on September 23.

Saturday Night Live, Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC