Trump Crashes GOP Debate and Brutally Roasts Candidates Onstage in Cold Open

Saturday Night Live opened this week with James Austin Johnson’s version of former President Donald Trump crashing the GOP debate stage to deliver brutal roasts of the candidates onstage.

Timothée Chalamet was the guest host on this week’s edition of Saturday Night Live. Boygenius was/were the musical guest.

But before Chalamet could begin his hosting stint, the cast of the long-running sketch show performed the cold open, a long-running gag in which the show performs a parody — usually related to current events — that ends with performers breaking character and exclaiming “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”

This week’s cold open featured a satire of the NBC News-hosted Republican presidential primary debate that took place Wednesday night, and featured periodic fireworks between the five current runners-up — but no Trump.

Kenan Thompson portrayed moderator Lester Holt, while the candidates were portrayed by Chloe Fineman, Ego Nwodim, Molly Kearney, Devon Walker, and John Higgins.

But after recreating one of the few memorable moments from the debate, everyone onstage froze as a spotlight hit Johnson’s Trump, who went on a vicious and loopy tear:

“DONALD TRUMP”: How adorable they actually think they’ve got a chance. Sad in some ways, but in other ways funny. Can you believe it folks? 91 indictments, four trials. And I’m still the best choice. Now they’re all stuck behind me. And there’s nothing they can do about it, just like in real life. 3%. 8%. 14%. 5%.

And how about poor Tim Scott, Huh? 1%. Very low. Lower, then, frankly. Milk. Apparently there’s a milk lower than 1%. People are calling it skim. We’ve never had it. Don’t drink it.

But we like Skim Scott. We love him. And his girlfriend. Not a lot of chemistry between those to right? They make me and Melania look like Taylor and Travis.

And how about Vivek Ramaswamy? We like to say Ramaswamy! But do we like him? He makes it hard, doesn’t he? Folks, this getting checks. A lot of boxes. He’s rich, is rude. He’s got weird hair. He’s a lot like me. Except for one thing that matters a lot to my horrible, horrible base: White! Sad. He’s going nowhere.

Watch above via NBC’s Saturday Night Live.