As the Trump administration’s military engagement in Iran continues to majorly disrupt the world’s oil supply, Saturday Night Live began the March 14 cold open a little differently.
An American family (Mikey Day, Ashley Padilla, Marcello Hernández, and Sarah Sherman) worries about whether they’ll be able to make it to Grandma’s house without going broke.
“Fill up? Not all the way, though, right?” the family’s mother (Padilla) asks.
“We have to,” the father (Day) tells her, against dramatic music.
“But it’s $5 a gallon,” she cries, telling their children they’ll have to leave one of them behind. But when the kids ask why, President Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) jumps in to explain.
“Epstein files! Kidding. But possibly not,” Trump says, as the family freezes in place behind him.
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James Austin Johnson roasted Hernandez and Padilla in SNL’s “Trump’s Gas Prices Cold Open”
“Anyway, hi. It’s me, Donald Trump. You might remember me from such campaign promises as, ‘lower gas prices’ and ‘no more wars’,” Johnson’s Trump said. “Sike! We love to make promises. Because a promise is just a lie that hasn’t happened yet. But now it has. Gas costs like a million billion dollars a gallon.”
According to NBC News, the price of oil per barrel was the highest since July 2022 in March after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, and the first six days of what the administration is calling “Operation Epic Fury” cost at least $11 billion.
“And as for the stock market, let me put it in a way that the Harry Styles fans in the crowd tonight will understand. You guys are gonna love this one: The stock market is going in one direction: down,” he continued. “You don’t know you’re broke as hell,” he sang in a parody of One Direction’s “You Don’t Know You’re Beautiful” before adding, “Sorry. I’m not familiar with his newer music. I am straight.”
Then Johnson roasted several Season 51 cast members as they had to stay still, as he has done in the past.
“Look at the cast back there. Frozen in one of these. Look at Marcello. He’s still playing kids,” he said, adding a comment he admitted was “racist.”
“And how about Ashley Padilla? Last name sounds Spanish, but take a look at her, folks. That’s the whitest white to ever white. Haircut! We loved haircut!”
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Colin Jost’s Pete Hegseth insists the Strait of Hormuz is fine
Soon, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost) tumbles out of a car full of empties.
“All you dweebs, stop saying the Strait of Hormuz is closed. It’s wide open,” he said, referring to the shipping route that roughly a quarter of the world’s oil exports pass through. In an interview, the real Trump told NBC News that “many countries” would be sending war ships to stanch attacks that have happened there since the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran, but the outlet reported that no countries have openly confirmed that as of yet.
“Sure, there’s a bunch of landmines floating in the water. Water mines, I guess,” Jost’s Hegseth said. “But if you’re an oil tanker and you’re driving it and you see one of the mines, just do what I used to do at every DUI checkpoint: close your eyes and gun it!”
Watch “Trump’s Gas Prices Cold Open” above, and stream every season of SNL on Peacock anytime.
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