Dave Chappelle sends a message to Trump and jokes about Palestine, Diddy, and immigrants in SNL opening speech

Dave Chappelle made a comeback to Saturday Night Live delivering a clear message to Donald Trump, covering various topics from the Los Angeles wildfires to the conflicts in the Middle East.

The 51-year-old comic’s appearances on the show have drawn controversy and headlines since his monologue after Trump won in 2016.

Having reclaimed his status as an A-list comedian, Chappelle continues to grab headlines and stir both laughter and controversy with his commentary on Trump, Biden, transgender individuals, and anti-Semitism. Speculations arose of some SNL writers protesting against his appearance in 2022.

Chappelle, who humorously expressed being weary of stirring controversy and expressed a desire to start fresh, concluded his performance on the NBC show by discussing Trump, quipping, ‘He’ll be the 47th president, he’s done it again.’

The comedian relayed an anecdote about the late President Jimmy Carter going to Palestine with minimal security while Chappelle was visiting the Middle East 20 years ago.

‘I will never forget the images of a former American president walking with no security with thousands of Palestinians cheering him on and when I saw that picture, it brought tears to my eyes. I said, ‘I don’t know if that’s a good president but that right there, I am sure, is a great man.’ It made me feel very proud,’ he claimed. 

He then said that ‘the presidency is no place for petty people,’ before addressing Trump and the rest of the nation, joking that ‘I know you watch the show.’ 

To Trump and America, Chappelle said: ‘Remember, whether people voted for you or not, they’re all counting on you. Whether they like you or not, they’re all counting on you. The whole world is counting on you. I mean this when I say this, good luck. Do better next time. Please, all of us, do better next time.’

Dave Chappelle returned to Saturday Night Live with a message for Donald Trump as he joked about everything from the Los Angeles wildfires to conflict in the Middle East

The comic sent a message to the president ahead of his inauguration on Monday

‘Do not forget your humanity and please have empathy for displaced people whether they’re in the Palisades or Palestine,’ he concluded to heavy applause. 

While sitting on a stool and smoking a cigarette, Chappelle initially joked in a 17-minute monologue that the only reason he agreed to host Saturday Night Live again was to burn off old Trump jokes. 

Earlier, Chappelle had what he said were admittedly ‘too soon’ laughs about the wildfires, saying that ‘the moment I said yes’ to SNL, ‘LA burst into flames.’

He said that despite the fact that he’s never lived in the city, it hits close to him and cited several famous friends who’d lost their homes. 

‘Then I go on the internet and I watch these fire videos and the comments all say ‘it serves these celebrities right, I hope their houses burn down’,’ he said.

‘You see that? That right there? That’s why I hate poor people,’ Chappelle joked. ‘They can’t see past their own pain!’ 

He riffed on how Los Angeles’ wildfires would be the most expensive natural disaster in American history, joking that ‘it’s because people in LA have nice stuff. I could burn 40,000 acres of Mississippi for like $600-700.’ 

At one point, he dismissed the many conspiracy theories about the fire, only to say: ‘If you were a rational thinking person, you have to at least consider the possibility that God hates these people. Sodomites!’

While sitting on a stool and smoking a cigarette, Chappelle initially joked that the only reason he agreed to host Saturday Night Live again was to burn off old Trump jokes

He then joked about one of the area’s LGBTQ-friendly communities, saying that God can’t have possibly do this ‘because West Hollywood was unscathed, because how can you burn what is already flaming.’

Chappelle, who lives in Ohio, then talked about this past summer’s controversy concerning Haitian migrants in the city of Springfield, which Chappelle lives one town over from. 

He said that Trump’s speculation that ‘they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats’ made him ‘crazy.’

Chappelle claimed that these Haitians had come legally and ‘they did jobs the whites weren’t doing. It’s not that the whites couldn’t do these jobs but they were doing other things: heroin, sleeping on the streets.’

In hopes he could be supportive, he spent 10 days eating his lunch each day at a Haitian restaurant in Springfield ‘to let them know if I’m safe here, you guys are definitely safe here.’

‘To be honest with you, I don’t know what that meat was,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘But whatever it was, it fell right off the bone, I’ll tell you that.’ 

He joked that he might leave Ohio along with the Haitians because ‘its just no fun being famous anymore.’

Sarah Sherman plays Rachel Maddow in a sketch about MSNBC on Saturday Night Live

SNL mocked MSNBC’s reliance on Trump in their news coverage in a cold opening sketch

That led into a bit regarding Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, who has pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking charges lodged against him after his September arrest. Combs has remained incarcerated, awaiting a May 5 trial, after bail was rejected following bail hearings before three different judges.

‘I’ve been in trouble in my day but let me tell you, this guy, Puffy… this guy Puffy is in an enormous amount of trouble, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this. They’ve got this guy in a RICO case by himself!

Chappelle then said he’d never been invited to any of the alleged ‘freakoffs’ Diddy held and came to a realization. 

‘I thought about it, I said ‘oh my God… I’m ugly.’ Everyone in Hollywood had an orgy behind your back and none of y’all called me? That really hurts!’ 

He changed his mind, saying that he was not ugly but rather, ‘I have snitch energy. I look like I’ll tell. The last thing you wanna see at the orgy is me looking across at you.’

Chappelle has largely been out of the limelight for the past year or so but has still remained a controversial figure.

In 2023, he sparked a walkout during a show in Boston after slamming Israel for its ‘war crimes’ against Palestinians. 

Earlier in January, woke comedian Michelle Buteau slammed Chappelle and accused him of profiting from ‘dangerous’ transgender jokes that ‘make people feel unsafe’. 

Weekend Update also did some material on current events, including a joke where Colin Jost compared the Israel-Hamas ceasefire to the two entities engaging in ‘dry January’

They also brutally mocked Joe Biden, with Michael Che cracking that the president was leaving office and ‘riding off into the pavement,’ before showing footage of Biden falling off a bike 

His most recent special, The Dreamer, was released in 2023, the last of multi-million dollar contract with Netflix which he referenced on the SNL stage. 

Earlier in the show, SNL mocked MSNBC’s reliance on Trump in their news coverage in a cold opening sketch. 

In one of the final sketches of the night, he reunited with Chappelle’s Show cast member Donnell Rawlings to bring back their old recurring characters, Silky Johnson and the player haters. 

Weekend Update also did some material on current events, including a joke where Colin Jost compared the Israel-Hamas ceasefire to the two entities engaging in ‘dry January.’ 

They also brutally mocked Joe Biden, with Michael Che cracking that the president was leaving office and ‘riding off into the pavement,’ before showing footage of Biden falling off a bike.