Saturday Night Live took a strong stance against President Donald Trump, drawing parallels between his swift impact on the government and how quickly Osama bin Laden altered airport security in the U.S. post the 9/11 attacks.
The devastating zinger came from Michael Che, who hosts Weekend Update with Colin Jost.
During his Tuesday speech to both houses of Congress, Trump claimed, ‘We have achieved more in 43 days than most administrations did in four or eight years, and we are just getting started.’
Making a comparison, Che likened Trump’s rapid actions to the former Al Qaeda leader, who was eliminated by Navy SEALs in his Pakistani refuge during Barack Obama’s presidency in 2011.
‘President Trump addressed a joint session of Congress and said no president has changed government faster than him. Yeah, and nobody changed airport security faster than bin Laden,’ Che said.
Despite the joke getting plenty of laughs in the SNL studio, it wasn’t as funny to some others.
One person reacted on X saying, ‘Michael Che comparing Trump eliminating government waste to Bin Laden who committed the mass murder of 3,000 people on 9/11 is one of the single stupidest things I have ever heard in my life.’
Someone else said the joke was ‘savage’ and claimed only Che ‘can get away with those.’
Weekend Update Host Michael Che compared President Donald Trump to Osama bin Laden, the former leader of Al Qaeda who planned the 9/11 terrorist attacks
The bin Laden joke got plenty of laughs in the SNL studio but didn’t go over as well with some on social media
Jost aimed his sights at Trump as well, kicking off the show with a joke about wishing the country could skip his second presidency entirely.
‘Well, tomorrow marks the start of Daylight Savings Time when we set our clocks ahead, ideally four years,’ he said.
The faux news anchors also made plenty of wisecracks about Trump’s foreign policy moves when it comes to the Russia-Ukraine war and tariffs on America’s top trading partners.
Jost characterized Trump’s heated Oval Office showdown last week with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky as him ‘defending our historical best friend Russia.’
‘Trump returned this week to attacking our sworn enemy … Canada,’ he said. ‘That’s right. Those syrup-guzzling, poutine-munching, moose-humping hockey sluts have taken advantage of us for far too long.’
Che took aim at Trump’s sudden reversal of the tariffs on most Mexican and Canadian goods two days after he implemented them.
‘After imposing tariffs on Mexico and Canada Tuesday, President Trump reversed them on Thursday. It’s a cunning political tactic experts call bipolar disorder,’ Che joked.
Trump was originally going to levy 25 percent across-the-board tariffs on Mexico and Canada in February but gave the countries a month-long reprieve after they agreed to put more personnel on the border to stop deadly fentanyl from coming into the US.
Che didn’t buy Trump’s oft-given rationale for the tariffs against our neighbor to the north, citing a statistic from US Customs and Border Patrol that just 43 pounds of fentanyl was seized at the Canadian border during the last fiscal year.
On top of making a bin Laden joke, Che also ridiculed Trump for his drug-smuggling rationale for putting tariffs on Canada
The Weekend Update hosts spent the rest of the segment clowning on Elon Musk (Pictured: A protest in Pasadena, California, outside a Tesla dealership on March 8, 2025)
‘President Trump said the tariffs on goods from Canada is to stop the flow of fentanyl, even though last year only 40 pounds of the drug was seized at the northern border. Forty pounds? What’s that, like two butt-fulls?’
Jost ended the discussion on tariffs by sneaking in a jab at Elon Musk, the leader of the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency and the CEO of Tesla.
‘Experts say that President Trump’s tariffs will raise the cost of a new car by as much as $12,000. Or you can get a free Tesla since people are throwing them away,’ Jost said.
Before Trump’s broad pause on tariffs, he made a carveout for auto imports through the USMCA, the trade deal he negotiated with Mexico and Canada in his first term.
The current tariff break on most goods coming in through the USMCA will expire on April 2.
Jost and Che spent the rest of the segment ridiculing Musk for supposedly being bullied by Trump into wearing a suit at his congressional speech and at the recent contentious Cabinet meeting.
Jost then closed it out with a reference to the rumors this week that Donald Trump Jr. is considering a run for president in 2028, a reminder that got the audience to groan in disgust.
‘If you don’t think he could win, you clearly aren’t familiar with how things work here in hell,’ he said.
