SNL returns with another Trump Cold Open

Saturday Night Live returned from its winter break and rang in the new year with what’s quickly become a familiar tradition now that Donald Trump is president again: letting James Austin Johnson suit up as Trump and riff on the absurd — and often deeply troubling — actions coming out of the White House since the show last aired.

As the saying goes, reality is stranger than fiction, and after a brief hiatus, the writers clearly had a lot of ground to cover. This time, Johnson wasn’t alone. He was joined by a full cabinet of “curiosities” and “little freaks,” including JD Vance (played by Jeremy Culhane), Marco Rubio (Marcello Hernández), Kristi Noem (Ashley Padilla), and Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost).

The sketch bounced rapidly from topic to topic, skewering everything from the (probably illegal) abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to ICE’s presence in Minnesota. It also found time for digs at rumors about Vance wearing eyeliner and increasingly pointed jokes about Trump’s deteriorating mental health.