‘SNL’s Joe Biden’s TikTok Influencers Ukraine War Briefing Cold Open Saved By A Plunger, Seriously

deadline.com:

“I suggested it as a joke, and then it actually happened,” dead panned Kate McKinnon as White House press secretary Jen Psaki tonight.

And yes Saturday Night Live decided to literally rip tonight’s White House set cold open from the headlinesTaking viewers behind closed Oval Office doors via the actual Ukraine war briefing meeting held on March 10 with TikTok influencers on Zoom, SNL tonight cut down the number of participants from the real-life 30 who were given top intelligence on the Russian invasion, but they added one Joe Biden.Portrayed in typical halting fashion by James Austin Johnson, the self-described “landline of Presidents” sought the aid of the influencers and “fresh ideas from you guys about how we can win the information war on social media,” as McKinnon’s pitch perfect Psaki put it.

Now, with various social media platforms going down, dark or off the rails in Russia right now, TikTok has proven a constant presence of news for many over in Vladimir Putin’s backyard bout what is going down in the Ukraine.As “actress from the CW,” cast member Chloe Fineman suggested “poems” as the way to attack Putin. “Oh no, it’s that girl,” lamented McKinnon’s Psaki.

Even with a rant from Aidy Bryant about Hunter Biden and various conspiracies theories and Johnson’s POTUS sigh that “you don’t expect the animal make-up girl to be alt-right,” the cold open soon was ice cold and not at all funny.