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‘SNL’ pokes fun at Trump; president fires back

Alec Baldwin, pictured in a Feb. 2017 opening sketch of "Saturday Night Live," returns to the late-night show Saturday to mock the president’s national emergency.Will Heath/AP/NBC via AP

Alec Baldwin again skewered President Trump on “Saturday Night Live,” in the Feb. 16 cold open to address recent White House developments in a skit that drew a rebuke from President Trump himself.

“Folks, we need wall,” Baldwin’s Trump said, stressing each word as he stood behind a podium in the Rose Garden. “Wall works, wall makes safe. You don’t have to be smart to understand that; in fact, it’s even easier to understand if you’re not that smart.”

He justified declaring a national emergency in an effort to secure funding for a southern border wall. “You can all see why I have to fake this national emergency,” Baldwin’s Trump said. “I have to because I want to.”

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Parodying the president’s actual predictions he’d be sued in response to the move, Baldwin’s Trump adopted a sing-song voice as he outlined what he believes will happen, slipping in a joke at the end about the actor’s long-time role impersonating the president for “SNL.”

“I will immediately be sued, and the ruling will not go in my favor, and it will end up in the Supreme Court, and I’ll call my buddy Kavanaugh, and I’ll say it’s time to repay the Donny, and he will say, ‘new phone, who dis,’” he said. “And then the Mueller report will be released, crumbling my house of cards and I can plead insanity and do a few months in the puzzle factory, and my personal hell of playing president will finally be over.”

In between stereotypical impressions of Chinese President Xi and New York Senator Chuck Schumer, part of a jab at how winding the president’s remarks were Friday morning, Trump took a few “softball questions” from reporters, including CNN’s Jim Acosta, played by Kyle Mooney, with whom he has repeatedly clashed (Trump did so again earlier this week during his real announcement).

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“Oh, seriously, man, how do you keep getting in this room?” Trump asked the reporter. “I mean, I’d love to just build a wall around Jim.”

Elsewhere, the actor got in some digs at Trump’s health. “I just had a great health exam,” said Baldwin’s Trump, bragging that he stands at “six foot seven” and is 185 pounds, “shredded.” (According to medical results released by the White House on Thursday, Trump’s weight is 243 pounds, and his height is 6 feet, 3 inches; that makes his body-mass index 30.4, qualifying him as obese.)

In a Sunday morning tweetstorm, the president blasted the episode, describing it as a coordinated attack.

“Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!” Trump tweeted.

You can view the whole cold open above.


Isaac Feldberg can be reached by email at isaac.feldberg@globe.com, or on Twitter at @isaacfeldberg.