Just after midnight on the third night of the Republican National Convention, Saturday Night Live took over MSNBC. Live from the network’s set in Cleveland, Colin Jost and Michael Che delivered a full-on Weekend Update segment—months before SNL is scheduled to return for its 42nd season this fall. And they showed off their quick writing skills by joking about tonight’s biggest moments.
“Mike Pence still finished speaking and you still feel the electricity in the room, static electricity, created by all the shoes softly shuffling toward the exit,” Jost said. He also noted that Ted Cruz was booed off the stage for saying “vote your conscience” instead of endorsing Trump. “That’s where we’re at now,” he said. “People are booing the idea of listening to your conscience. It’s like a Jiminy Cricket showed up, and was like, ‘Always let your conscience be your guide’ and everyone was like, ‘Ah, a cricket, kill it!’”
After that, Che embarked on a Pokémon Go-inspired game in which he attempted to “catch the rarest creature of them all: minorities at the RNC.” But the absolute highlight of the broadcast came when SNL cast member and bona fide movie star Kate McKinnon emerged as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to comment on her recent feud with Donald Trump.
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“Trump picked a fight with the wrong 15-pound, 200-year-old marionette, baby!” she said. When Jost informed RBG that Trump tweeted that her “mind is shot,” she fired back, “If my mind is shot, then Donald Trump’s mind is shot, stabbed, strangled, put in a vat of wet cement, and dumped in the Gowanus Canal.”
As for rumors that Trump might appoint Chris Christie to the Supreme Court, Ginsburg said, “I’d rather have an empty chair than a broken chair.”
In this week of non-stop late-night political comedy, this was a reminder how much we miss SNL when it’s on summer vacation.
