Donald Trump recently reignited his feud with Saturday Night Live, declaring the long-running sketch show will soon be "put to rest" due to its falling ratings.
The former president recently sent a post on Truth Social reminiscent of the frequent attacks that he would tweet about SNL.
Trump's latest criticism of the NBC show arrived days after SNL parodied the January 6 committee's possible final hearing on October 13.
Among some of the skits from SNL's cold open include actor James Austin Johnson portraying Trump engaging in a rambling phone conversation while sitting in the toilet, ending the call asking: "Is Mike Pence dead yet?"
"I once hosted Saturday Night Live, and the ratings were HUUUGE! Now, however, the ratings are lower than ever before, and the show will probably be put to rest,'" Trump wrote in the early hours of Wednesday.
"It is just not, at these levels, sustainable—A bad show that's not funny or smart. L.M. [SNL producer Lorne Michaels] is angry and exhausted, the show even more so. It was once good, never great, but now, like the Late Night Losers who have lost their audience but have no idea why, it is over for SNL—A great thing for America!"
Trump's disdain for Saturday Night Live is nothing new, but it has not always been the case. Trump has presented the show on two separate occasions—once in 2004 and again in 2015 while still a contender for the Republican presidential nomination.
The sketch show mocking Trump is also not new, with six different SNL stars—Phil Hartman, Darrell Hammond, Jason Sudeikis, Taran Killam, Alec Baldwin, and now James Austin Johnson—having played a version of the real estate tycoon-turned-talent show host-turned-president since 1988.
Hartman first performed as a caricature of Trump on the show in 1988 via a sketch that mainly mocked his wealth rather than anything too satirical.
It seems that Trump was not too insulted by the portrayal, appearing in the audience during SNL's 15th anniversary special in 1989, during which Chevy Chase pours popcorn over him—a bit of slapstick that the future president appeared happy to be a part of.
Throughout the 1990s, portrayals of Trump were rarely featured on SNL. It wasn't until 2004 and the launch of his NBC show The Apprentice that Trump saw his national profile rise once more, resulting in his debut turn at hosting the program.
During the April 2004, show, he took part in a skit in which he wore a yellow suit, dancing along as a fictional advert for "Donald Trump's House of Wings."
Trump also declared, "Nobody's bigger than me. Nobody's better than me. I'm a ratings machine"—rhetoric he continued into his presidency and even after he left the White House.
While Hammond continued to portray Trump in sketches for several more years, usually mocking his tendency to boast, the real-life Trump himself did not present the show again until 2015.
The decision to get Trump to host the show as he was running for president on a hugely anti-immigrant mandate was met with protests in New York.
By the time he presented the show for the second time in November 2015, then-candidate Trump had suggested he would build a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border if elected president, and described Mexicans illegally entering the country as "criminals" and "rapists."
Despite the controversy, Trump's appearance on the show gave SNL its highest ratings in years.
However, by 2016, Trump decided he was no longer a fan of the show, particularly Baldwin's portrayal of him.
In 2016, Trump suggested that SNL should end after it mocked him in the wake of the second presidential debate against his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
"Watched Saturday Night Live hit job on me. Time to retire the boring and unfunny show," Trump tweeted. "Alec Baldwin portrayal stinks. Media rigging election!"
Even after winning the 2016 presidential election, Trump still chose to use Twitter to attack SNL.
"Just tried watching 'Saturday Night Live' - unwatchable! Totally biased, not funny and the Baldwin impersonation just can't get any worse. Sad," he tweeted in 2016.
Once Trump became president, SNL's satirical attacks on Trump increased. Trump also publicly took offense to the sketch show while in the White House, including asking if the federal government could investigate it.
"It's truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, not funny/no talent, can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of "the other side." Like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows," Trump tweeted in 2019.
"Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this? There must be Collusion with the Democrats and, of course, Russia!"
Fast forward three years, as Trump is rumored to launch a 2024 run for the White House, the former president is now using his own social network Truth Social to attack SNL and its low ratings, with the prospects of a third turn at hosting the show long since faded.
Newsweek has reached out to NBC for comment.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
