Comedians Alec Baldwin and Will Ferrell returned to NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” to parody President Trump’s response to developments in the House impeachment inquiry last week.
Baldwin, mimicking Trump, wrote off the hearings’ significance, claiming that testimony from Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, “completely exonerated me.” Ferrell, as Sondland, meanwhile contradicted those remarks, saying at one point that a “quid pro quo” was “on the low, low.”
The skit opened by featuring Baldwin’s Trump taking questions from a swarm of reporters as a loud helicopter prepares for takeoff outside the White House. Baldwin says he’s “in a big, big hurry right now,” but that “everything is perfect, okay?”
After being asked about Sondland’s testimony about the president’s dealings with Ukraine, Baldwin’s Trump launched into a monologue about why he felt the ambassador’s testimony exonerated him.
“I actually wrote down notes from his testimony that proves my innocence and I used the biggest, fattest black Magic Marker I could find,” Baldwin said, referring to a handwritten notes Trump read from as Sondland testified. “I love black magic markers by the way. I know most people use sharpies, they smell like licorice.”
Reading from his notes, Baldwin recounted a conversation he had with Sondland to defend his innocence.
“It’s right here in my notes of super important conversations on the phone I’ve had,” Baldwin said. “I’ll read one, but then I have to split. This is me and Ambassador Sondland talking. He says to me, ‘what do you want?’ And I answer, ‘two large pies, extra cheese, extra sauce.”
“No, wait, wait, wait. That’s a different phone call,” Baldwin’s Trump said, before asserting that he said to Sondland, “I want nothing, no quid pro quo, bro.”
After Ferrell, impersonating Sondland, appears, Baldwin’s Trump jokes that “it’s so great to meet you for the first time by the way.”
“Oh, that’s right. Keep the quid pro quo on the low low.” Ferrell’s Sondland said. “I just want to go on the record and say, ‘you guys need to lay off my boy.'”
Ferrell’s Sondland goes on to state that countries like Ukraine and Russia “will do anything” for Trump, adding that he knows this because he asked.
Ferrell and Baldwin’s appearance came following a week in which the House Intelligence Committee heard depositions from several former and current administration officials about the president’s dealings with Ukraine.
Sondland testified that Trump
conditioned a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the leader announcing investigations into 2020 presidential candidate
Joe Biden and the 2016 presidential election. He added that in his opening statement that “everyone was in the loop” about the connection between investigations and a White House meeting.
Trump rejected the significance of Sondland’s testimony, saying that he
didn’t know the ambassador “very well” and that he never wanted anything from Ukraine. Reading from a packet of notes, Trump claimed that he told Sondland in a July conversation that “I want nothing” multiple times.
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