The SNL cold open on Saturday, 7 November, took on the midterm elections, and it ended with a surprise no one in the studio saw coming. The sketch opened with Sarah Sherman as Senator Chuck Schumer and Kenan Thompson as House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, celebrating at a post midterms party and each claiming credit for the party’s wins. Democrats had won control of both the House and the Senate on Tuesday.
James Austin Johnson, playing President Donald Trump, then stepped in to claim the credit himself. He said the Democrats would never have won without the horrible economy and a terrible war, and he grumbled about the results while running through his nicknames for the winners. The list included Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff and Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed. “And, of course, down in Texas, Tala-freako,” he said, turning to the newest winner of all.
That was the cue for the real James Talarico to walk onto the stage. Talarico, who had won the Texas Senate race just days earlier, stepped into the sketch to loud applause from the studio audience. “That’s Senator Talarico to you,” he told Trump. “Hi, America. I’m James Talarico, the guy who’s been texting you asking for five dollars.” The line was a joke about his own campaign’s constant fundraising texts.
The SNL cold open has a long history of politicians stopping by, especially around elections. Kamala Harris appeared opposite her impersonator Maya Rudolph ahead of the 2024 election, and Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin made unexpected appearances as White House candidates more than a decade ago. Talarico’s turn fits that pattern, with the difference that he was playing himself days after winning, not a candidate asking for votes. The SNL cold open gave him a national stage at the moment his name was already in the news, and his win had already made him one of the most talked about new senators in the country.
SNL cold open and the joke about Trump sketches
Talarico then turned the sketch on itself. He told Trump that if they could work together, they could make life better for everyday Americans, and that people clearly wanted something new and different. “I’m talking, of course, about SNL’s cold opens,” he said. “How many of these Trump freezers are they going to do?” Johnson, as Trump, had one word in reply. “Infinity!”
The exchange landed because Johnson has played Trump in the cold open nearly every week since Trump returned to office, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The SNL cold open has become a regular feature of the current season, and Talarico’s question was aimed at the show’s own habit. Colin Jost also appeared in the sketch as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, promising Trump that he would never, ever leave him.
The sketch itself ran through the usual beats of a post election cold open. Sherman and Thompson opened it as Schumer and Jeffries, trading claims over who deserved the credit for the wins, before Johnson’s Trump slid into frame to take it for himself. The SNL cold open then kept Trump talking until Talarico froze the scene by walking on, a device the show has used before to hand the last word to a guest. The audience response did the rest, with cheers carrying the moment past the joke itself, and the SNL cold open ended as the show’s cold opens usually do, with the cast and its guest shouting the sign off together.
SNL cold open and the Texas result behind it
The SNL cold open drew its force from the result itself. Talarico, a former state representative and schoolteacher, defeated Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton by 12 points, according to The Hollywood Reporter, winning 55.09 percent of the vote, according to Variety. It was the most expensive Senate race in US history, and the first time since 1988 that Texas elected a Democrat to the Senate.
The cameo also carried a sharper edge. In September, threats from Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr over equal time rules led ABC and Jimmy Kimmel to move a Talarico appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live from broadcast television to YouTube, a decision both Kimmel and the candidate condemned. On Saturday night, Talarico closed the sketch the usual way, joining Johnson to shout, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!” The show then takes a break until 4 December.