“Saturday Night Live” kicked things off with Karoline Leavitt front and center this past weekend, turning her latest White House briefing moments into a sketch that closely mirrored her real-life exchanges with reporters. Ashley Padilla stepped into the role, capturing Karoline’s urgency and controlled delivery as the show opened inside the familiar press room.
From the start, the writers made it clear they were using her recent interactions as the frame for the night’s cold open.
The scene unfolded methodically. Padilla’s Karoline greeted the press with her practiced confidence, insisting the week held nothing unusual while standing in a room where every question suggested the opposite. As the reporters prepared to push back on her claims, the sketch built up the tension she often faces during actual briefings. It was a structured setup, giving viewers a clear sense of the topics she had been navigating and the pressure surrounding them.
White House press briefing with Karoline Leavitt and Trump pic.twitter.com/tgVarzhDrl
— Saturday Night Live – SNL (@nbcsnl) November 16, 2025
The quotes in the sketch began in the third paragraph, with ”SNL” leaning directly into Karoline’s ongoing friction with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
“I’ll open the floor to questions starting with Kaitlan Collins from CNN — who I openly hate,” she said, launching the key exchange of the night. Collins, played by Chloe Fineman, wasted no time before asking, “We definitely need to start with the 20,000 Epstein emails.”
Karoline’s response was delivered with certainty: “You know you suck, right? Look, the only thing these emails prove is that President Trump did nothing wrong. If anything, his crime was loving too much. And possibly too young.”
The sketch used her words to illustrate exactly how she has been framing questions about the president’s connection to the recently released emails.
More questions followed within the sketch, including one referencing Trump asking the DOJ to investigate Democrats’ ties to Epstein and another about the administration allegedly sending money to Argentina.
Each question was met with Karoline redirecting or circling back to earlier talking points, except for the time when someone asked about money sent to Argentina, she blasted, “We shall return to Epstein!”
Social media responded quickly once the sketch aired.
One viewer predicted, “Wait for Donald to demand that SNL be taken off the air.”
Another called it a standout moment, writing, “This has to be one of the best! Way to go SNL!”
A third praised the accuracy of the impressions, saying, “This has to be one of the best cold opens SNL has done in recent years. The guy playing Trump is so good at playing him.”
Someone else pointed out a detail in the staging: “I sort of expected the cross to get bigger every time they cut away from Ashley.”
And another summed up their reaction with, “Brilliant. Trump is any comedy writer’s easy muse as all they really have to do to make it funny is state the truth.”
“SNL” expanded the sketch by bringing in James Austin Johnson as Trump.
His version of the president, which has had the world in a chokehold since his 2024 campaign, stepped into the press room and immediately began answering questions himself, dismissing the idea of a deeper connection to Epstein while referencing “the thousands of pictures of us together, dancing and grinding our teeth at various parties.”
His portrayal emphasized Trump’s tendency to redirect conversations and insert his own commentary, mirroring the approach he often takes during public appearances.
This connected to the show’s long history of incorporating him into their political sketches.
Not all of the skits directed at Trump have been funny.
One was with Dave Chappelle, who, on the “SNL” season 50 opener, said to the president, “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’s counting on you. … Good luck. Please, do better next time. … Do not forget your humanity.”
For viewers watching the sketch and the real-life footage, it created a link between the show’s depiction and Trump’s actual reliance on her, ending the night with both the comedy and the commentary pointing back to the same relationship.
