25 best cold-opens in SNL history
By David Rouben
5. Trump gets showered with questions at his first press conference
One notable aspect of Donald Trump’s presidency is that he has rarely held a press conference. In his first year in office, he only had one solo presser, as the media have had to rely on the White House’s daily press briefings, although good luck getting anything of substance from Sarah Sanders.
However, the one press conference Trump had a week before his inauguration will live on forever in infamy. SNL even joked that their sketch was a “rebroadcast” of the actual presser.
The timing of it couldn’t have been worse, as Trump had to deal with the explosive Steele dossier that initially came to light when BuzzFeed published the entire document. The one part of it that everyone latched on to was the part detailing how he hired a group of Russian prostitutes to pee on a bed in the Ritz-Carlton’s presidential suite that the Obamas had previously slept in. That was a wild accusation to make and, to this date, it still hasn’t been confirmed.
While Trump may have wanted to stick to the issues, the dossier and that specific story was at the forefront of everyone’s mind. When SNL was initially preparing for this sketch, they could’ve never dreamt of that material falling into their lap, but they had a field day with it. They did well not to make every question about the pee tape, or else it would’ve dried up quickly. But by having the first few questions about it, then having Trump answer questions while making pee references, was golden.
SNL also did well to reference what has become the most meme-able moment of the press conference, when he pointed to a CNN reporter and exclaimed “you are fake news.” But by far the best line in this sketch is when he says, in reference to Kellyanne Conway, “every day it looks like she does the ice bucket challenge with her make-up.”
To tie it all together, the sketch ended with Vladimir Putin holding the pee tape in his hand after Trump was pressured to say Russia hacked the election. He ended it off with even more pee references before launching into “Live from New York.”
This sketch was so good, they got Trump to tweet about it. However, since they know that it doesn’t take much to set him off, it allows the writers to get even more creative with their jokes.