'SNL' Cold Open spoofs Signal chat controversy with Trump officials adding teens to group text
"Saturday Night Live” spoofed the recent Trump administration Signal group chat controversy in the latest Cold Open.
The sketch starts with three teenage girls, played by Mikey Madison, Ego Nwodim and Sarah Sherman, texting in a group chat about topics like a boy’s haircut and another girl’s clothes.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is played by Andrew Dismukes, then cuts into the text conversation.
“FYI – Green light on Yemen raid!” he adds in the group chat, along with some comments about weapons, attacking “some Houthi rebels” and emojis.
“Um, who is this?” Madison’s character questions.
Hegseth responds that it is himself and adds a raunchy comment about Israel alongside more emojis.
Madison’s character then questions if she and the other girls “know” Hegseth, adding that she is “Jennabelle.”
“Oh nice, Jennabelle from Defense, right?” Hegseth responds.
Vice President Vance, played by SNL’s Bowen Yang, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, played by SNL’s Marcello Hernández, are also put into the group chat by Hegseth, where they talk about Vance’s Greenland trip and “JFK files”
“We’ve been trying to tell you, we’re in high school,” Nwodim’s character later states, with Sherman’s character adding she believes that the girls were “accidentally added” in “a government chat.”
“In that case, we were totally pranking you guys, LOL,” Rubio responds. “But would you mind emailing your names and home addresses to deportations@ICE.gov?”
“Hey, could be worse, we could’ve added the editor of The Atlantic, again,” Vance remarks, referencing the recent scandal in which Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg gained access to a group chat in which top Trump officials were discussing an attack in Yemen.
“You did,” Goldberg, played by SNL’s Mikey Day, responds. “I am also here.”
The Hill has reached out to the White House, State Department and Department of Defense for comment.