{"id":468367,"date":"2026-05-04T19:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/468367\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T19:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T19:20:13","slug":"snl-finally-parodied-kash-patel-he-could-only-have-been-played-by-aziz-ansari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/468367\/","title":{"rendered":"SNL finally parodied Kash Patel. He could only have been played by Aziz Ansari."},"content":{"rendered":"

If Kash Patel<\/a> happened to be at home watching TV on Saturday night and not, say, out getting hammered at a bar after another banner worst week ever serving under Donald Trump, I hope for his sake that he wasn\u2019t watching NBC. Either way, I fear the hangover is a nasty one. The FBI director was skewered on Saturday Night Live this weekend in a pitch-perfect scene that worked only because of the surprise star brought in to play him: Aziz Ansari. And yes, he made fun of Patel\u2019s bulging eyes.<\/p>\n

In a cold-open sketch<\/a> that smartly compared Patel\u2019s swaggering machismo to that of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, here played by Colin Jost, Ansari lampooned the FBI chief as a pompous party boy who is woefully wrong for the job. \u201cEveryone says Indian people are smart, hardworking, incredibly intelligent,\u201d Ansari joked as Patel. \u201cI prove without a shadow of a doubt that we can be just as incapable and incompetent as the whites.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was the first time SNL has tackled Patel, even though he has long been ripe for parody. The show doesn\u2019t have any brown actors on its current roster, so it hadn\u2019t yet found a way to mock the bureau chief for acting as if he\u2019s the first guy ever to have a girlfriend<\/a>, or for those weird fan-fiction children\u2019s books he wrote about Trump<\/a>. But the recent controversy swirling around him evidently prompted Lorne Michaels to make a call, enlisting Ansari to play, as he says in the sketch, \u201cthe first Indian person to suck at his job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given that both Hegseth and Patel enjoy berating<\/a> reporters<\/a>, it made sense to set the scene at a White House press briefing that quickly goes off the rails\u2014much like the one Patel held last month<\/a>. In that appearance, Patel railed against the Atlantic for its bombshell story<\/a> alleging that he drinks excessively, is frequently MIA, spiraled after he got locked out of his email, and may soon be fired. \u201cThat\u2019s just more lies,\u201d Ansari said in the sketch. \u201cI\u2019ve always been able to log into my email, except for a brief 36-hour period of time when I forgot I had changed my password to Kashmeoutside69.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ansari hasn\u2019t been on SNL since he hosted back in 2017, but his casting was a stroke of genius here. The diminutive star, best known for the douchey, little-brother energy he displayed across seven seasons of Parks and Recreation, here summoned all his acting skills to capture Patel\u2019s \u2026 douchey, little-brother energy. Like Jost\u2019s version of Hegseth, Ansari\u2019s Patel is bombastic, overly bro-y, and a fan of a stiff drink. (When a reporter in the sketch asked Patel about excessive drinking, Jost\u2019s Hegseth initially assumed that the question was for him.) But seeing Ansari puff his chest while being dwarfed by the press room lectern made the impression instantly devastating for Patel. \u201cFor those of you saying I\u2019m doing a bad job running the FBI,\u201d Ansari said, \u201cwell, what if I told you this agency is only six weeks away from pinpointing the exact location of Osama bin Laden.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patel was first introduced by Jost\u2019s Hegseth as \u201csomeone else who wants to come say hello before he\u2019s almost certainly fired.\u201d The defense secretary had set the frat boy tone for the skit, calling reporters \u201cdingbats,\u201d \u201cbutt munchers,\u201d and \u201cweak asses\u201d while singing the praises of the war in Iran. \u201cAs you might have seen on our sick-ass TikTok, we\u2019ve been bombing stuff, doing sick air raids,\u201d Jost\u2019s Hegseth said. \u201cThis war has been a movie! Specifically The NeverEnding Story.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Nitish Pahwa
\n Trump Is Going After Jimmy Kimmel Again. What\u2019s Likely to Happen Next Isn\u2019t Pretty.
\n Read More<\/b>\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s always asking me, \u2018When is this war gonna be over?\u2019\u00a0\u201d he continued. \u201cThat\u2019s like asking when is sex gonna be over? Answer: When the man is done!\u201d<\/p>\n

At several points during the skit, Ansari was able to spoof Patel without any words at all. When he first appeared to cheers from the surprised audience, he grabbed the lectern and immediately made his eyes go as wide as possible, creating an eerie resemblance to the real Patel and his famous \u201ccrazy eyes<\/a>.\u201d Referencing the investigation into last week\u2019s attack at the White House Correspondents\u2019 Dinner<\/a>, Ansari then joked, \u201cWe dotted every t and bulged every i.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump loves me. Everybody loves me. Even the Correspondents\u2019 Dinner shooter said, \u2018Kill everyone but Mr.\u00a0Patel,\u2019\u00a0\u201d Ansari added, referencing Patel\u2019s reported omission from the suspect\u2019s hit list<\/a>. \u201cYou get a shout-out like that in a psycho\u2019s manifesto, you must be doing something right!\u201d<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n <\/p>\n

    The Devil Wears Prada 2 Is Full of Beautiful People. Unfortunately, One of Them Sticks Out.
    \n <\/a>\n <\/li>\n

  2. \n <\/p>\n

    One of Literature\u2019s Darkest Novels Is Now a Netflix Show. It\u2019s Gripping, Heartbreaking\u2014and Unexpected.
    \n <\/a>\n <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The real Patel is suing the Atlantic for $250 million, claiming that the publication\u2019s story defamed him with false reporting. Ansari\u2019s version also wanted to set the record straight on Saturday. \u201cLet me be clear: This FBI director has never been drunk or hungover on the job,\u201d he said. \u201cThis FBI director has never filled a 40-ounce travel mug with ice-cold gin and a swirl of dry vermouth and six lemon peels and called it a Kashtini. This FBI director has never used taxpayer dollars to take a private jet to fly him and his girlfriend to three different Buffalo Wild Wings locations across the country to see if they could taste the difference. And this FBI director has definitely not stood on top of a couch at the VIP room of TAO Nightclub and Asian Bistro and shouted, \u2018Who wants the nuclear codes? JK! I ain\u2019t got \u2019em.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

    It remains to be seen what will happen with Patel\u2019s lawsuit\u2014and how long he will still have a job<\/a>. But this shouting appearance on SNL isn\u2019t likely to endear him any further to the president, who famously is not a fan of losers or weakness. Much like Hegseth, Patel\u2019s inflated masculinity seems to fold instantly when it\u2019s the subject of parody. Maybe it\u2019s time for a Kashtini.<\/p>\n

    Get the best of movies, TV, books, music, and more.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Kash Patel happened to be at home watching TV on Saturday night and not, say, out getting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[265],"tags":[1380,18,117,19,17,790,15460,128],"class_list":["post-468367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-comedy","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-politics","tag-snl","tag-tv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116517931257509819","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}