SNL's Weekend Update Delivers Explosive Political Satire
During the most recent broadcast of Saturday Night Live, comedian Michael Che left the studio audience stunned with a sexually explicit joke targeting former President Donald Trump. The controversial segment aired during The Weekend Update, SNL's long-running news satire portion of the show.
The joke came in response to Trump's threat to sue the BBC for $5 billion over a documentary that edited his January 6 speech. Che stated: 'President Trump is threatening to sue the BBC for $5billion for a documentary that edited out the part of his January 6 speech where he called for protestors to be peaceful.'
Edited Clip Creates Explosive New Sentence
The segment then cut to a deliberately edited version of Trump's actual speech, splicing together individual words and phrases to form an entirely new sentence. The manipulated footage produced the shocking statement: 'Everybody knows I went down on Bill Clinton.'
This two-part joke referenced both the BBC's controversial editing and the recently released Epstein emails. The BBC's Board Chair, Samir Shah, had previously acknowledged that their documentary edit 'did give the impression of a direct call for violent action.'
Epstein Email Connection
The joke also drew from the 20,000 emails from Jeffrey Epstein's estate released on November 12 by Democrats in the House Oversight Committee. Among these communications was a particularly damning 2018 email between brothers Mark and Jeffrey Epstein.
In this email, Mark Epstein suggested that Jeffrey ask former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon 'if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba.' The identity of 'Bubba' became a subject of intense speculation on social media, with many suggesting it referred to Bill Clinton, who was often called by that nickname.
However, Mark Epstein later told Newsweek that 'Bubba' was not Clinton, though he provided no additional information about the email's meaning or the true identity.
Audience Reaction and Political Fallout
Viewers expressed shock at the explicit nature of the joke on social media platforms. One audience member wrote: 'Jeezus... this SNL cold open is bizarrely unreal in how it frames the release of the Epstein emails as condemning Trump more than, oh say Bill Clinton.'
Another commented: 'Trump blowing Bill Clinton SNL cold open mention achieved. We are rapidly reaching mid-90s era mainstream comedy casual brutality.'
The controversy comes amid Trump's ongoing legal threats against media organisations. On Friday, he told reporters aboard Air Force One: 'We'll sue them for anywhere between a billion and $5billion, probably sometime next week.'
While the BBC has issued a formal apology and agreed not to rebroadcast the documentary, they have refused compensation and stated: 'We strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.'
This isn't the first time Trump has threatened legal action against SNL. In 2018, he suggested he might sue the show after they aired a segment imagining a world where he had never been elected, though no legal action materialised.
