The Media Research Center has spent the past couple of years raging against “Saturday Night Live” for not being right-wing enough. For example:
NewsBusters Podcast: ‘SNL’ Thinks Dumb Trumpers Get Their News from T-Shirts
Late Night Shame: ‘SNL,’ Colbert Can’t Condemn College Antisemitism
Lorne Michaels In Shocking Denial About ‘SNL’s’ Liberal Bias
SNL Claims ‘Real American Dream’ Is For Immigrants To Say ‘White Guys Only’
SNL, Colbert Welcome Harris And Walz For Last Pre-Election ‘Pep Talk’
‘SNL’ Boss Lorne Michaels Insists: ‘You Can’t Be Samantha Bee’ (Bee Hardest Hit!)
NewsBusters Podcast: ‘Saturday Night Live’ Lets Shane Gillis ROAST Biden, Ken Burns
SNL Attacks Biden Staff for Talking to Tapper, Makes Lewd Catholic Priest Joke
Comedy cop Alex Christy made a joke-count contribution in an Oct. 2 post:
Season 51 of NBC’s Saturday Night Live is set to premiere on October 4, but before that a new NewsBusters study looked back and found that 82 percent of Season 50’s Weekend Update jokes targeted conservatives and that 60 percent of its cold open political characters were conservatives or Republicans.
[…]
Co-anchored by Colin Jost and Michael Che, the Weekend Update segment is the part of the show that is most like the nightly comedy shows that NewsBusters analyzes elsewhere. In fact, SNL’s 82 percent matched the figure for the combined totals of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, CBS’s Stephen Colbert, NBC’s own Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show in 2024.
In Season 50, Jost and Che combined to tell 249 political jokes, 203 of which were about right-leaning people, groups, or things. That left 45 against left-leaners and one for non-partisans.
In the five episodes before the election, Jost and Che told 3.4 liberal jokes per episode. After the election, they told 1.8. By contrast, they told 9.6 conservative jokes per show both before and after the election.
ConWebWatch has previously noted how Christy complained that the show didn’t sufficiently hate then-New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Christy spent an Oct. 7 post raging that “SNL” failed to be transphobic:
NBC’s 51st season of Saturday Night Live got off to a rough start as cast member Bowen Yang dressed up as Dobby the house elf from Harry Potter for a heavily sarcastic Weekend Update segment that mocked British author J.K. Rowling for dissenting from the left’s trans orthodoxy.
The genesis for the skit was Rowling expressing her displeasure at a podcast appearance by actress Emma Watson, where she refused to defend Rowling’s defense of women-only spaces. It’s a feud that dates back a few years to the 2022 BAFTA Awards, when Watson not-so-subtly condemned Rowling at a time when the vitriol and threats being directed against Rowling were at their highest.
Co-anchor Michael Che kicked off the satirical interview by noticing Yang appeared afraid, “Dobby, you okay? You don’t have to be scared.”
Yang downplayed any threat Rowling might be facing, “Why would Dobby be scared, sir, Dobby’s just about to publicly weigh in on trans people, that’s all… master sends Dobby to go on the telly and define once and for all what a woman is, sir.”
[…]
Two men making fun of the woman concerned about the erosion of the safety found in women’s-only spaces does not seem like the way to win over converts. However, that was the pattern for Che. Earlier during Weekend Update, he thought it would be a good idea to imply the country is racist when he quipped, “Kamala Harris has released a new book that explains how she lost the 2024 Election. It’s called I’m a Black Lady.”
Christy offered no evidence that America hasn’t become more racist under President Trump.
The rage continued in a Oct. 21 post by Christy:
Some people just can’t help themselves when it comes to comparing Republicans to Nazis. One such person is NBC’s Saturday Night Live Weekend Update co-anchor Colin Jost, who made the claim while fellow anchor Michael Che continued to do his best to help drag Zohran Mamdani across the finish line in New York City’s mayoral election.
Putting up a picture of Argentine President Javier Milei side-by-side a picture of Austin Powers, Colin Jost began, “Argentine President Javier Milei, seen asking if he makes you horny baby, met with President Trump at the White House this week, where Trump announced he’s sending $40 billion to Argentina, because if history is any guide, Trump officials will end up fleeing to Argentina.”
After a Jost joke about former Rep. George Santos, who recently had his prison sentence commuted by President Trump, Che recalled, “During the first New York mayoral debate, Andrew Cuomo attacked Zohran Mamdani. Saying that he once gave the finger to the Columbus Day statue, whereas Cuomo snuck up behind the statue and grabbed it by the hips.”
While this is the second week in a row Che has used Weekend Update to promote Mamdani, he is hardly alone.
Christy went on to whine: “This is where most jokes about Democrats are in 2025: joke about certain Democrats in order to promote those even further to the left.”
Christy made more excuses for Trump in a Nov. 11 post:
NBC’s most recent edition of Saturday Night Live crossed the line from satire into straight-up fake news as James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump character confessed to being a sociopath after the recent incident in the Oval Office where a man fainted. Additionally, Johnson claimed to be pleased that the Supreme Court allowed him to “stop feeding poor people.”
After Jeremy Culhane played the part of the fainting man, Johnson appeared and looked totally uninterested in what had just happened, “Oh, hi. Didn’t see you there. Someone was dying in my office. I think I’m playing this very normal. Just stand there and stare like a sociopath. Didn’t even pretend like I was going to help, someone drops something and you do the fake bend, you know, ‘oh, let me help you pick that up, oh, you got it? You got it?’”
[…]
The truth is Trump initially did look concerned, but backed away from the crowd surrounding the man because he almost certainly felt that he would be of no help because he is not a doctor and instead chose to just get out of the way.
How does Christy know that? Can he read Trump’s mind? Or is he just making stuff up to deflect deserved heat from the president? We suspect it’s the latter.Christy went on to grouse in a Dec. 9 post:
Calling yourself a comedian does not give you the license to spread fake news under the guise of exaggeration or hyperbole, but once again NBC’s Saturday Night Live has done just that. This time the guilty party was Colin Jost, who played Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth and claimed that the drug boats being hit in the Caribbean are actually just fishermen and that the name of the operation is Operation Kill Everybody.
During the cold open about Hegseth taking questions from reporters, Jost played an exaggerated version of Hegseth that was frequently yelling, singing tonally inappropriate songs, or trying to do a tough guy shtick. As he opened it up for questions, Fake Hegseth urged, “Now, you got questions for me, fine, pretend I’m a random fishing boat and fire away.”
Mikey Day played the part of one reporter who wondered, “Okay. Is there any truth to the allegations that after an initial strike on a drug smuggling boat, you ordered a second strike to kill the survivors?”
Jost acted offended that anyone would ask such a question before reverting to the “Hegseth likes alcohol” trope, “Uh, first of all, that kind of cruel, heartless act has no place in Operation Kill Everybody. Second, I wasn’t even in the room when it happened, okay? I was so jacked up after the first strike, I had to make an emergency call to my sponsor—sorry, a guy I met in an anonymous meeting—so I don’t drink something that I like, and I want, but I can’t have, but I want it, and I need it, and I want it right now bup, bup, bupaba, it’s booze. Next question?”
After Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley briefed relevant lawmakers on Capitol Hill, it seemed as if Republicans and Democrats agreed on nothing except for that there was no “kill everybody” order.
Christy griped about the show’s portrayal of President Trump in a Dec. 16 post:
James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump character was simultaneously drugged up on Adderall and Ambien on NBC’s Saturday Night Live when he falsely described his seizing of a sanctioned Venezuelan oil tanker as piracy and bragged about shooting down Santa Claus.
Fake Trump was aboard Air Force One taking questions from reporters when he turned to Andrew Dismukes, “Now, can a man ask me a question, please? Yes, you’re kind of a man, what you got?”
The bit about desiring a question from a male reporter was SNL’s way of claiming that Trump only seems to go after female reporters because apparently Jim Acosta was not available for comment. As for Dismukes, he asked, “Okay, Mr. President, any comment on the oil tanker you seized off the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday?”
Christy then huffed in defense of Trump’s taking over ships: “Seizing sanctioned ships is not piracy, unless you also think Russia is a victim of a piratical Germany.”
After the show riffed on Santa, Christy closed with one more whine: “Santa is a magical being, so even if someone shot him, he would survive so that he could deliver coal to SNL.” How does Christy know that?
The hate goes on
Christy, continued his hateful routine against “Saturday Night Live” in a Jan. 20 post:
NBC’s Saturday Night Live returned from its lengthy Christmas break this past weekend and quickly joined the rest of the nightly comedy shows in seeking to smear ICE. According to SNL, ICE agents are bad fathers who have anger issues and just like being violent for its own sake.
During the cold open, Ashley Padilla played the role of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem who rattled off some job qualifications for aspiring ICE agents, “Now, obviously, there’s been clashes on both sides in Minneapolis, and have we been perfect? Yes. And I know a lot of people looking at the situation in Minnesota are wondering the same thing. Can I join ICE? Well, let me ask you this. Is your neck wider than your head? Are you currently wearing a Punisher T-shirt? Have you ever punched a hole in the wall because your son took a dance class? If the answer is yes, then grab a gun, any gun, and saddle up, big boy. And just know you can always count on me, because my last name is Noem as in, do I have the situation under control? Noem, I don’t.”
Later, during Weekend Update, co-anchor Michael Che declared that the Trump administration knows what they are doing is illegal, but that they simply do not care, “Officials in Minnesota have sued the Trump administration, claiming that their large-scale ICE actions are an unconstitutional federal invasion. While the Trump administration claims that, yep!”
Fellow co-anchor Colin Jost then added, “President Trump defended the actions of ICE agents in Minneapolis, adding that the day of reckoning and retribution is coming. Which is a phrase he stole from that guy who’s always pointing at him.”
[…]
It is difficult to see what any of SNL’s attacks on ICE have to do with the debate about whether or not Jonathan Ross shot Renee Good in self-defense. SNL instead went for personal attacks built around a caricature they have constructed to make them feel better about themselves.
And Christy is not doing the same thing with the comedians he attacks? Please.
Christy returned to huff in a Feb. 3 post:
With ICE-Nazi analogies flying all over the late night comedy shows, it was inevitable that NBC’s Saturday Night Live would join the trend, and they did this past weekend during its 1,000th episode in both the cold open and Weekend Update segments.
During the cold open, Pete Davidson portrayed border czar Tom Homan, who told an assembled group of ICE agents, “Now, I’m sure a lot of you are wondering why Greg Bovino, the last guy, was dismissed. I want to stress that it wasn’t because he did a bad job. Or publicly lied about the shooting of an American citizen. Or even, uh-oh, dressed like a Nazi. It was that he was filmed doing these things. And the president no like-y that.”
That then led to Fake Homan asking the crowd some questions, which they would also get wrong. For instance, Davidson began, “Now, who can tell me why we’re here in Minneapolis?”
[…]
Don Lemon was not arrested by ICE, but facts aside, the Nazi analogies kept coming on Weekend Update. Co-anchor Colin Jost began by putting up two pictures: one of Bovino and another of a Sean Penn character who has been described as a “pocket Nazi.” Jost declared, “Meanwhile, President Trump is changing things up in Minnesota to calm the recent violence against his poll numbers. Border patrol official Gregory Bovino, who was incredible in One Battle After Another, has been removed from overseeing the Minneapolis ICE operation, and hopefully he was removed ICE-style through the broken window of his car.”
Christy failed to disclose that his employer has also used Nazi analogies, from falsely claiming George Soros worked for the Nazis to dismissing critics as “digital brownshirts.”
Meanwhile, Tim Graham raged that “SNL” makes Trump jokes in his Dec. 30 podcast, which had as a guest onetime junior comedy cop Christian Toto:
We’ve found the same tilt on NBC’s Saturday Night Live on their “Weekend Update” fake newscast. Then there’s the constant anti-Trump skits to open the show.
A December live-open skit suggested Trump is on drugs. James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump character was simultaneously drugged up on Adderall and Ambien in December. The problem is when the jokes somehow transform into factoids, like the idea that Sarah Palin (instead of Tina Fey) actually said “I can see Russia from my house.”
Palin is a right-wing Republican, so of course Graham would defend her.
Defending Sarah Palin is like defending the random lady at your church who whines on FB.