Alec Baldwin returned to the Oval Office this weekend on Saturday Night Live, where he was greeted by several ghosts of President Donald Trump’s past.
In A Christmas Carol parody, Baldwin’s Trump was stunned when Michael Flynn, Trump’s former National Security Adviser who pleaded guilty this week to lying to the F.B.I., appeared in shackles with a warning for the president.
“I’m Michael Flynn, the Ghost of Witness Flipped,” Flynn, played by SNL’s Mikey Day, said. “Mr. President: I came to warn you. It’s time for you to come clean for the good of the country.”
Baldwin’s Trump is then greeted by the ghost of Billy Bush, who was ousted from his gig on the Today show after the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape emerged during the 2016 campaign.
“Frankly, I’m looking pretty good in the NBC News division right now,” Bush, played by Alex Moffat, said, referring to the recent dismissal of longtime Today show host Matt Lauer.
“Remember, Donald, these things catch up with all of us,” he continued. “If you worked at NBC right now, you’d be fired, fired, fired!”
Russian president Vladimir Putin, played by a shirtless Beck Bennett, was the next ghost to appear in front of Trump. Hillary Clinton, played by Kate McKinnon, was the Ghost of Christmas Future.
“It is I, Hillary Rodham Clinton,” McKinnon said, draped in a black cloak. “You, Donald, have given me the greatest Christmas gift of all: sexual gratification in the form of your slow demise. You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to say this: Lock him up!”
As this week’s cold open, the sketch also played on a number of other news items from the week outside of Flynn and Lauer, including First Lady Melania Trump’s Christmas decorations for the White House. Her décor included white trees lining a hall in the White House — an image that soon went viral when her director of communications tweeted it as it appeared with eerie lighting.
Coming to Trump as Melania in the sketch, Cecily Strong describes her choice of décor to the president.
“It’s a beautiful festive hallway of dead branches and mysterious shadows,” she said. “And when you open the elevator, blood comes out.”
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