When Dave Chappelle hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 2016, four days after the presidential election, he ended his monologue with a thought about President-elect Donald J. Trump. “I’m wishing Donald Trump luck,” Chappelle said at the time. “And I’m going to give him a chance, and we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one too.”
Chappelle came back to host “S.N.L.” the weekend after the 2020 presidential election and midterm vote of 2022, but although he was invited to the same slot in 2024, he declined. In a long and lively monologue on this weekend’s broadcast, he explained why.
Recounting a conversation with Lorne Michaels, the “S.N.L.” creator and executive producer, Chappelle said, “I was like, ‘Nah, man, I’m cool,’” adding: “Things are going good. I finished my Netflix deal. I got all this money and stuff.” But Michaels persisted, so to get off the phone, Chappelle said, he offered a compromise: “I said, ‘Just save the date closest to Jan. 6.’”
Dressed in a suit and tie and taking occasional drags from a cigarette, Chappelle commented on a wide range of news events, including the Los Angeles wildfires. “It is way too soon to do jokes about a catastrophe like that,” he said, a mischievous grin crossing his face.
He talked about how the fires had affected his friends and colleagues like the actors Cary Elwes and Dennis Quaid and the rapper Madlib. He said that reading callous online comments from people wishing that celebrities’ houses would burn down upset him. “You see that?” Chappelle said. “That right there? That’s why I hate poor people. Because they can’t see past their own pain.”
He called the wildfires “the most expensive natural disaster that’s ever happened in United States history,” probably because “people in L.A. have nice stuff.”
“I could burn 40,000 acres in Mississippi for like six or seven hundred dollars,” he added.
Chappelle said that Luigi Mangione, who was charged with murder in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive in Manhattan, “did almost plan like the perfect crime” and that his only mistake was forgetting “to shave his eyebrows.”
The comedian noted that other countries were helping the United States to put out the Southern California fires. “Canada sent planes that helped us out,” Chappelle said. “Mexico sent firefighters. And Trump was like, ‘make sure they leave when they finish.’”
Chappelle revisited a false claim the president-elect made during the campaign, that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their neighbors’ pets. Chappelle, who lives in Ohio, explained that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield had arrived in this country legally and “saved a lot of companies because they did jobs that the whites weren’t doing.”
“They were busy doing other things,” he added. “Heroin, sleeping on streets, you know what it is.”
After a riff about Sean Combs and Chappelle’s observation that he had never been invited to one of his “freak-off” parties (“I said, ‘Oh my God, I’m ugly. Boy, that was a tough way to find that out.”), he returned to the topic of U.S. presidents — specifically Trump and Jimmy Carter, who died in December.
Chappelle recounted how he had traveled to the Middle East after walking off his Comedy Central series “Chappelle’s Show” at the same time Carter was there to promote his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”
When Carter was told the Israeli government could not protect him if he visited the Palestinian territories, Chappelle said he was moved by photographs of “a former American president walking with little to no security while thousands of Palestinians were cheering him on.”
He added, “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.”
Chappelle concluded his monologue with these thoughts:
The presidency is no place for petty people. Donald Trump, I know you watch the show. Man, 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. Please, do better next time. Please, all of us, do better next time. Do not forget your humanity and please have empathy for displaced people, whether they’re in the Palisades or Palestine.
Cold open of the week
Yes, there were sketches on “S.N.L.” this week, too, beginning with a parody of an MSNBC roundtable that featured Sarah Sherman as Rachel Maddow being repeatedly interrupted by breaking news stories about the incoming Trump administration. (Among the satirical headlines: Trump would like to “Trade Connecticut for Italy”; and he is sending Donald Trump Jr. to “Explore the Possibility of Purchasing the Emerald City.)
James Austin Johnson appeared in his recurring role as Trump, explaining that his inauguration would be held indoors because there would be “too many people to fit outside” and introducing Bowen Yang (playing the disgraced former Representative George Santos) as his new Secretary of Fact Checking. (Yang mourned Jimmy Carter as “a great influence on me, since he was my dad.”)
Weekend Update jokes of the week
Over at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on Trump’s return to the presidency and Joe Biden’s imminent departure from the office.
Jost began:
Well, guys, it is the dawn of a new era. Donald Trump released his official inaugural portrait, and the photo is lit, I assume, by hell opening up. Trump is trying to look so hard-core in this photo, I’m surprised he didn’t add a parental advisory sticker and a do-rag. [His screen showed a mock-up of what that photo might look like.] And then Trump also released the official portrait of JD Vance. [His screen showed a generic image of a blank profile.]
Che continued:
Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony has been moved inside the Capitol building. Hey, just like last time! [His screen showed an image of rioters breaching the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.] President Biden delivered a farewell address to the nation on Wednesday and then triumphantly rode off into the pavement. [His screen showed a video of Biden falling over on a bicycle.]
Weekend Update desk guest of the week
Michael Longfellow, appearing on Weekend Update as himself, delivered a particularly timely lament on TikTok, which went dark only hours before this broadcast. His support for TikTok, Longfellow said, was “the first political opinion I’ve ever had.”
“So we’re just banning things because they’re from China now?” Longfellow asked incredulously. “Well you know who else was from China? That’s right: Jesus Christ.” When Che informed him that Jesus was not from China, Longfellow replied, “I thought he was Middle Eastern, but I saw it on a TikTok.”
