Saturday Night Live‘s cold open kicked off with reporters hounding a faux Karoline Leavitt and President Donald Trump about the Epstein files.
Ashley Padilla portrayed Leavitt at the White House press briefing while James Austin Johnson returned to his usual post as Trump, where the two took questions from journalists surrounding the topic, specifically in reference to new emails that were released this week.
“Okay, well I think we definitely need to start with the 20,000 Epstein emails,” Chloe Fineman said as CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “Why does President Trump’s name appear in so many of them?”
“You know you suck, right?” Padilla’s Leavitt said. “Look, the only thing these emails prove is that President Trump did nothing wrong. If anything, his crime was loving too much.”
Johnson’s Trump then hit the stage, noting, “I am hiding almost nothing, just enough to make it extremely suspicious. But let me ask you a question: If there was something incriminating about me in the files, then why would I cover them up?”
One reporter answered, “Wait, isn’t that exactly why you would cover them up?” Johnson’s Trump continued, “Okay, let me go again. If I was innocent, wouldn’t I just release all the files?”
“Yes!” another reporter replied, as Johnson’s Trump explained that the “barely knew” Jeffrey Epstein.
“Jeffrey Epstein, I barely knew the guy, okay, as evidenced by the thousands of pictures of us together dancing and grinding our teeth at various parties, always leering and pointing at something just off camera, probably a book we’re excited to read,” he said.
Saturday night marked Glen Powell‘s hosting debut, though he previously made a brief cameo during Sydney Sweeney’s March 2024 SNL appearance, where she joked about rumors of a romance between the two amid their film Anyone But You.
The Running Man actor served as the final SNL host of November alongside musical guest (and recent Grammy nominee) Olivia Dean, following the month’s former leads in Miles Teller and Nikki Glaser. Other hosts of season 51 so far include Bad Bunny, Amy Poehler and Sabrina Carpenter.
More to come.
