UPDATE 10/25 7:45 p.m. ET: The Law & Order: SVU episode featuring a Donald Trump-esque politician will air Wednesday, November 16, eight days after the real-life presidential election.
UPDATE 10/14 9:15 p.m. ET: NBC has decided to pull the episode from its scheduled October 26 time slot, and instead air it at some point after the November 8 presidential election.
Original story below:
Just in time for the November election! Law & Order: SVU will air an episode on Wednesday, October 26, that centers on a politician weathering a scandal not unlike Donald Trump‘s recent controversies, Us Weekly has learned.
The long-running NBC crime procedural’s upcoming installment will feature a politician, played by guest star Gary Cole (Office Space), whose campaign starts to fall apart after numerous women make damaging accusations against him. (The specific claims have not yet been revealed.)
The episode airs about two weeks before the November 8 election and arrives as Trump’s presidential campaign has endured a bumpy few weeks. The Associated Press reported in a story published October 3 that the real estate mogul made lewd and sexist comments about female contestants while host of The Apprentice.
On Friday, October 7, The Washington Post published a video featuring a conversation between Trump and Access Hollywood‘s then-anchor Billy Bush, with the GOP presidential nominee boasting about groping women and hitting on Nancy O’Dell.
The audio, recorded by a hot mic on an AH bus in 2005, has become a focus of the presidential race, with Trump addressing it at the debate on Sunday, October 9, and key members of his own party calling for him to step down.
Meanwhile, a source previously told Us Weekly that Bush will “definitely” lose his job as cohost of NBC’s Today show over the incident.
This is certainly not the first time that SVU has tackled an issue that mirrored one from real-life headlines. Season 18 has already featured an episode loosely based on the San Bernardino, California, shootings of December 2015, and an episode inspired by Netflix’s true-crime docuseries Making a Murderer. Last season, a story line involved an alleged sexual assault on a dating show akin to ABC’s The Bachelor.
Law & Order: SVU airs on NBC Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET.
