Um, guys? Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump felt left out as John Goodman’s Rex Tillerson and Beck Bennet’s Vladimir Putin shared a secret handshake on the Saturday, December 17, episode of Saturday Night Live.
The night’s cold open kicked off with Baldwin’s Trump chatting with his adviser, Kellyanne Conway (Kate McKinnon), about the latest updates in his ongoing cabinet selection. McKinnon-as-Conway reminded him of Rick Perry as his pick for Secretary of Energy, to which Baldwin’s Trump excitedly replied, “Was that a great choice? I saw him on Dancing With the Stars. This has so much energy. He’s just un-president-ed.”
The unusual pronunciation of the word “unprecedented” is a jab at the president-elect’s misspelling in a tweet earlier Saturday, which launched a number of scathing comments and memes.
“Now I just have to pick who’s president,” he told McKinnon’s Conway. When she informed him that he was already selected, he looked startled. “Can I just do it three days a week like Howard Stern does?”
A short while later, as Baldwin’s Trump was about to go “do Christmas” with his wife, Melania (Cecily Strong), they received an unexpected visitor via the chimney — none other than Vladimir Putin (Beck Bennet) himself.
Bennet-as-Putin flattered Trump as “the best candidate, the smartest candidate, the Manchurian candidate” and reassured the real estate mogul that he needed no gift in return for his sketchy Elf on the Shelf gift.
“Please, Mr. Trump. You are the gift,” he said. But the pair’s lovefest was cut short by the arrival of another key member of Trump’s political cadre: Rex Tillerson, played by John Goodman.
Goodman-as-Tillerson and Bennet-as-Putin excitedly shared a top-secret handshake and began to talk strategy as Baldwin’s Trump tried to interject from time to time, to no avail. (In real life, the former ExxonMobil chief executive has a warm relationship with Putin and Russia’s political and business elite.)
Watch the hilarious clip above and see what they all said!
