“Weekend Update” co-anchor Colin Jost ruthlessly mocked President Donald Trump for insisting that he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
“Trump kidnapped Venezuela’s president, then he did so much war that we’re running out of missiles, and he still thought, ‘This is my year,’” Jost said.
“It’s truly like if I thought I might win an Oscar for Tom and Jerry,” the SNL star added.
He delivered the punchline before a background still of Jost in 2021’s Tom and Jerry—a movie critics widely panned.
The joke was in response to Trump insulting Nobel Peace Prize winner Navi Pillay at a recent rally. Trump described her as “a liberal person who works at the United Nations who nobody has ever heard of.”
Jost mocked Trump for being “genuinely angry” at the Nobel Committee’s choice.
Co-anchor Michael Che told perhaps the darkest joke of the segment when he addressed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s controversial announcement that the U.S. military would soon livestream the execution of a prisoner.
“The Pentagon announced that the execution of the Fort Hood shooter would be livestreamed, which will be the first public execution in the U.S. since, I want to say, a couple weeks ago?” Che said, while the screen featured a photo of ICE agents raiding a home.
Some of the audience, likely reminded of the ICE shooting of a 28-year-old New York City resident on Thursday, groaned at Che’s joke. Che ad-libbed, “I ruined the fun.”
Che won the audience back with his next ICE joke, however: “ICE agents will reportedly start using shock gloves, which do not leave marks and cause incredible pain, hopefully to an agent who forgets to take them off at the urinal,” Che said to loud applause.
Reprising material from the episode’s cold open, Jost referenced Pete Hegseth’s new “Department of War” logo.
“Hegseth is being criticized for a new Department of War logo that features an angular eagle similar to the one used by the Nazis,” Jost said. “Hegseth asked how upset people were about it on a scale of here to here.”
Jost made a hand gesture uncomfortably similar to a Nazi salute. He pleaded with the audience afterward, “Don’t GIF it, guys.”
