Weekend Update was full of zingers about President Donald Trump‘s rapid about-face in the wake of the stock market crash his global tariffs spurred.
Co-anchor Colin Jost kicked off the Saturday Night Live segment by quipping that POTUS “tried to rescue the economy from the disastrous policies of whoever was president last week.”
Addressing corporate CEOs’ shock at the aggressive tariffs, the late-night show played a supercut of Trump’s affinity for tariffs, something voiced often during his presidential campaign. “It’s like listening to Bubba Gump talk about shrimp,” Jost remarked.
Meanwhile, co-host Michael Che chimed in, calling into question Trump’s claim that the economic downturn was like treating an ailment: “Yeah, but this feels like we took a whole bottle of medicine with a glass of vodka and laid in a warm bath.”
Che also got the biggest reaction of the night, with his one-liner: “It was reported that Elon Musk personally appealed to President Trump to stop his tariff plan, and it worked! The stock market went up like this,” he said, enthusiastically, as a picture of Musk’s Nazi-like salute flashed on screen, eliciting exclamations from the audience.
Later on, Weekend Update featured a trio of guest appearances from Bowen Yang who resurrected his recurring Chinese trade minister Chen Biao, Emil Wakim and his notes on American patriotism and Sarah Sherman as Jost’s fictitious accountant Dawn Altman.
Some one-liner highlights from each:
“So the next time you buy a pair of Tom’s, they’ll donate another pair to you, because you’re the one in need, you poor bitch!” Yang exclaimed in reference to the dire state of the American economy.
Wakim, who entered the Weekend Update desk with mini American flags in tow, began, “This was just to buy me some good will before the stuff I’m about to say, but it’s a tough time to criticize America publicly, especially with eyebrows like this.” True to his stand-up roots, the SNL rookie’s three-minute set launched into cracks about the “cruelty” of everyday interactions with Uber Eats drivers that borderline on “racist” after consumers order a “$40 burrito” as a treat following a “hard day sending emails for Hitler or whatever anyone’s job is.”
Sherman, in pitch perfect distress as Dawn Altman, ended her time on Weekend Update by putting her head through the back wall of the set, exclaiming that there were “so many” women tied up inside the wall, which prompted a set of bound hands to come out of the torn wallpaper.
