Late last week, around the time Russian forces were shelling an enormous nuclear power plant in Ukraine, something finally dawned on Tucker Carlson: Vladimir Putin may not be such a stand-up guy. He — as well as Fox News colleague Laura Ingraham and former president Donald Trump — had been singing his praises, even as he invaded one of its neighboring nations. When Carlson realized the errors of his ways, he knew who to blame for his ignorance: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
The Fox News hosts’ whoopsidaisy was the inevitable subject of SNL’s latest Cold Open. Last week, the sketch show delivered a somber ode to the embattled people of Ukraine. On this week’s Oscar Isaac-hosted episode, they dug into those who sided with Russia, at least until they realized it was unpopular.
The sketch presented a Fox News special entitled “Ukrainian Invasion Celebration Spectacular,” recorded live from Mar-a-Lago. The hosts were Alex Moffat’s Tucker (who describes himself as “like if a pair of boat shoes came to life”) and Kate McKinnon’s Ingraham (“When I watch Harry Potter, I root for Voldemort”).
The pair acknowledged that they’d gotten into some trouble for heaping praise upon an aggressive world leader, all while slagging off Ukraine’s brave president Volodymyr Zelensky. “I kept saying we should be more worried about our own border getting invaded by Mexico,” Moffat’s Tucker said. “But in my defense, I am racist, so I thought that was true.”
There were guests. One of them was Mar-a-Lago’s most famous resident, Trump himself, who spends his post-presidential days living there, ranting to strangers. As played once more by James Austin Johnson, he launches into snaky tangents. One begins with him discussing Rihanna and ends with him talking to whales. By sketch’s end he was serenading Putin from afar with a chaotic rendition of “My Funny Valentine.”
You can watch the sketch — honestly not too different from real life — in the video above.