One last song. Saturday Night Live kicked off its season 42 finale on Saturday, May 20, with Alec Baldwin as President Donald Trump sitting at the piano and singing Leonard Cohen’s classic “Hallelujah” on the Studio 8H stage in New York City.
The star-studded cold open began with Baldwin’s Trump singing solo before he was joined by counselor Kellyanne Conway (Kate McKinnon), Vice President Mike Pence (Beck Bennett), Eric Trump (Alex Moffat), Donald Trump Jr. (Mikey Day), Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Aidy Bryant), First Lady Melania Trump (Cecily Strong) and Ivanka Trump (Scarlett Johansson). White House chief strategist Steve Bannon also made an appearance, though it is unclear which SNL cast member played him as he was dressed as the Grim Reaper.
At the end of the song, Baldwin’s Trump told the audience, “I’m not giving up because I didn’t do anything wrong, but I can’t speak for these people.”
The performance was a reprise of SNL‘s post-Election Day episode, in which McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton sang “Hallelujah” to bid farewell to her character and to pay tribute to Cohen, the legendary singer-songwriter behind the 1984 ballad, who died at age 82 that same week.
Baldwin later hinted on Twitter that he might not be returning next season to play Trump. “I dreamed I did a season of SNL,” he tweeted after the show on Saturday. “I played the character of a daft, slightly menacing, vaguely racist Pres. Like some guy on The Simpsons.” He then went on to thank the writers, crew, cast and executive producer Lorne Michael.
