On Oct. 22, President Donald Trump and Vice President Joe Biden had their final debate of the campaign. Saturday Night Live was quick to respond that weekend with the release of their take on the debate. Alec Baldwin and Jim Carrey reprised their roles as Trump and Biden respectively, with Maya Rudolph joining in the role of moderator Kristen Welker. While the episode that night was hosted by Adele, she was not present in the cold open.
The sketch covered a number of expected topics, ranging from the introduction of “the mute button” which ended up seeing very little use, to Biden’s frequent use of “Come on, man!”. The structure of the opening largely mirrored that of the actual debate, covering COVID-19 and its response, the promised vaccine, race, and a very brief note on climate change.
Baldwin’s portrayal of Trump focused on emulating the “toned down” approach that Trump appeared to be bringing to the final debate, but still fired off several personal jabs about Hunter Biden and about Biden receiving “money from China”. In comparison, Jim Carrey’s portrayal of Biden seemed to step away from the friendly and neighborly approach SNL has taken with the character in prior appearances, instead having an exasperated exterior bely a much more aggressive inner monologue. While maintaining what Welker described as a “Clint Eastwood” expression, Biden held an inner monologue urging himself “Don’t do it Joe, don’t retaliate!”
Trump’s comment about being “the least racist person in the room” also took a center stage role later on in the opening, with Baldwin using the actual quote from the President as a culmination of his running gag of continuously confusing Welker for well known women of color, including Mindy Kaling, Padma Lakshmi, and Hoda, in addition to mistaking her for the waiter rather than the moderator. Choosing to abruptly end the discussion on race, stating that the brief exchange “went about as well as the race section could have gone” before moving onto the climate change section, which was given a whole minute in reference to the frequent lack of attention given to climate change in prior debates.
Trump gave a poem about how the wind kills birds, and creates twisters while remaining a love of Biden. Biden on the other hand gave very abbreviated thoughts on the manner, summing the real Biden’s position up as “Oil no, Wind yes, Fracking depends on what state I’m in”.
The final question focused on both the candidates’ thoughts on what their inauguration day speech will be provided they win the election. Trump’s response focused on a handful of previous incidents of his, including “kids love cages”, a reference to the group Qanon, and a comment about Joe Biden being of Kenyan origin in a callback to his participation in the birther movement directed at President Obama. Biden instead described himself as seemingly a midrange family sedan who doesn’t have “a golden toilet seat, I have a soft, spongy one that hisses whenever I park my keister”, as a means of parodying Biden’s appeals to the average working American, and how he’s meaning to be more of the “everyman” than his opponent.
