Saturday Night Live hosts branded Donald Trump “the weirdest” after his rally in Coachella this weekend.
SNL host Colin Jost took aim at the Republican presidential nominee during the Weekend Update segment of the show. Earlier on Saturday, former President Trump hosted a campaign rally at Calhoun Ranch, on the outskirts of Coachella and Indio.
“Trump held a rally at the site of the Coachella music festival because, just like Trump, Coachella brings out the worst in white people,” Jost said in the opening moments of the Weekend Update. “And maybe it was the 100 degree heat, but it also brought out the weirdest in Trump.”
Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is held every year in California, and attracts some of the biggest names in music over two weekends.
The show then cut to a clip of the rally in which Trump asks the crowd, “What is happening to our cities?” before pointing at the crowd and saying, “Look, it’s Abraham Lincoln. Stand up.”
Referring to the 1865 assassination of Lincoln while he was attending a play in Washington D.C. and the attempted assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania in July, Jost then said: “Given your recent history at rallies, do you really want both you and Abraham Lincoln to stand up?”
Jost also took aim at Democratic nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris after it was reported that her campaign gathered more than $1 billion in fundraising since she took over the blue ticket from incumbent President Joe Biden, who announced he would not run for a second term in July this year.
“It was also reported that during the first three months of her campaign Kamala Harris raised over $1 billion, which I hope is finally enough money for her to stop texting me,” Jost said, with an inset showing mocked up images of the Harris campaign asking for money.
According to an NBC report on October 9, the $1 billion includes funds raised by Harris’ campaign committee and by a campaign-affiliated joint fundraising committee that also takes donations for the Democratic National Committee and state parties.
Newsweek has contacted both campaigns for comment via email outside of normal working hours.
Donald Trump gestures as he walks onstage for a campaign rally on October 12, 2024, in Coachella, California. “Saturday Night Live” branded the former president “the weirdest” following his appearance at the event.
Mario Tama/GETTY
Jost also addressed how Trump’s running mate JD Vance repeatedly refused to say that Trump lost the 2020 election during an interview with The New York Times this week.
“And I’ve answered your question with another question,” Vance said in reply to interviewer Lulu Garcia-Navarro’s fifth attempt to get a direct answer.
“Vance offered to move the interview under a bridge so he could answer it in the form of a riddle,” Jost said. “You can’t answer questions with questions. If a cop asks, ‘Have you been drinking?’ you can’t ask him, ‘Have you been drinking officer?'”
