{"id":2314,"date":"2026-03-08T09:38:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T09:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/2314\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T09:38:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T09:38:06","slug":"snls-cold-open-skewers-kristi-noems-dhs-firing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/2314\/","title":{"rendered":"SNL’s Cold Open Skewers Kristi Noem’s DHS Firing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEven with Ryan Gosling<\/a> back as host tonight, SNL<\/a> eschewed a Hail Mary<\/a> for its cold open and went with tradition with another predictable but still hilarious roasting of Pete Hegseth<\/a>, with some axed <\/a>and \u00a0\u201creassigned under the bus\u201d Kristi Noem<\/a> tossed in.<\/p>\n

\n\tOr, as Ashley Padilla<\/a>\u2019s ICE Barbie insisted, and convinced no one: \u201cI didn\u2019t get fired, I self-deported.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tWell, it is true that Noem\u2019s congressional testimony earlier this week that tried to blame Donald Trump<\/a> for her unintentionally funny $220 million airport TV ads and inner-office relationships did go south pretty quick.\u00a0\u201cAs I told my plastic surgeon, the work is never done,\u201d Padilla\u2019s pitch-perfect Noem added, never knowing when enough is enough.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe featured player\u2019s Noem was all the more impressive \u2014 even if the jokes wrote themselves with the former South Dakota\u2019s governor\u2019s reign of error and terror at DHS over the past year \u2014 when you consider Padilla was sharing the screen with Colin Jost<\/a> as Hegseth.<\/p>\n

\n\tKicking off with the Weekend Update co-host as the ex-Fox host keg-guzzling and Sprite-spitting, Jost\u2019s Hegseth proceeded to shoot off about the media asking too many questions about what was happening in Iran. Tapping into the attacks on the murderous rulers of the Islamic Republic for the second SNL cold open in a row<\/a>, the self-described \u201cwhite Hamilton\u201d told the press, \u201cyou\u2019re all playing chess and I\u2019m playing Grand Theft Auto.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJost\u2019s Hegseth kinda summed up the whole missile-tossing situation in the Middle East: \u201cWhat is happening? Okay, I\u2019ll tell you what\u2019s happening. Okay, we don\u2019t know, okay? And that\u2019s the whole point. If we don\u2019t know what we\u2019re doing, then Iran definitely doesn\u2019t know what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCertainly coming off a week of Trump flexing over the ongoing undeclared war with Iran, damning allegations from the Epstein Files about the ex-Apprentice host and a minor, some pretty pivotal primaries in Texas and a trio of former presidents attending the funeral of Jesse Jackson, there was a plethora of comedy riches for SNL to draw from in just the political realm alone. Truth be told, the March 5 pink-slipping of Noem and her immediate replacement by ex-MMA fighter and Sen. Markwayne Mullins (R-OK) would have made sense to go solo in the satire spotlight. For that matter, so would have Marco Rubio being gaslighted by Trump and the \u201cI speak American\u201d Hegseth after addressing today\u2019s awkward Shield of Americas summit in fluent Spanish.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith Jost and Padilla in top form, the biggest surprise in tonight\u2019s cold open was that James Austin Johnson did not make a cameo as Trump himself. For once, SNL realized less is more.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith the acclaimed Gorillaz making their debut with the Not-Ready-For-Primetime Players tonight, the 14th episode of SNL\u2019s 51st season sees Gosling back for the fourth time as host. The past multiple Oscar nominee, who put on a pink-tinged and Slash-cameoed version of Barbie\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m Just Ken\u201d at the 2024 Academy Awards, is about to lift off again March 20 with heavily weighted audience pleaser Project Hail Mary, based on Andy Weir\u2019s 2021 novel.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking of a minor Hail Mary, next week sees Harry Styles doing double duty on SNL<\/a> as both host and musical guest. This is the second time the ex-One Direction singer has performed both roles, with Styles previous hosting and musical guest stint in November 2019. Taking all of his musical performances into account and that hosting slot seven years ago, next week with be Styles\u2019 seventh SNL appearance overall \u2014 well, if you saw Gosling\u2019s monologue, better make that Styles\u2019 eighth SNL appearance<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even with Ryan Gosling back as host tonight, SNL eschewed a Hail Mary for its cold open and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2188,2189,38,2190,8,247,9,95,2191,2192,2193,2194,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-2314","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-ashley-padilla","9":"tag-colin-jost","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-hail-mary","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-kristi-noem","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-pete-hegseth","16":"tag-ryan-gosling","17":"tag-saturday-night-live","18":"tag-saturday-night-live-cold-open","19":"tag-snl","20":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116192890197249654","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}