“In summary, war is awesome!”
A week after taking the stage as a part of Deadline’s Contenders Television shindig in L.A., Ashley Padilla took center stage in SNL’s cold open tonight in NYC as White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Then, in what may would assume was the comedy twist, she quickly handed things over to Colin Jost for another pitch-perfect parody of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“Okay, everyone’s always asking me, when is this war gonna be over?” the Weekend Update co-host as the ex-Fox News host exclaimed. “That’s like asking, when is sex gonna be over? Answer, when the man is done.”
If that double star turn from Padilla and Jost wasn’t enough, a perfectly cast Aziz Ansari hit the podium with a chest pump as FBI director Kash Patel. As Ansari satirically self-declared: “The first Indian person to suck at his job!”
“Everyone says Indian people are smart, hardworking, incredibly intelligent,” The Master of None star’s bug-eyed Patel proclaimed. “I prove without a shadow of a doubt that we can be just as incapable and incompetent as the whites.”
Asked by an assembly of SNL cast members posing as journalists if he was on the way out, the controversial and rumored soon-to-be-really-fired Patel replied: “Hell, no! President Trump loves me. Everybody loves me, even the Correspondents’ Dinner shooter said, ‘Kill everyone, but Mr. Patel.’ You get a shout-out like that in a psycho’s manifesto, you must be doing something right.”
Indeed, that was the case on Saturday Night Live’s cold open tonight.
Coming off a week that saw shots fired at the now shuttered 2026 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, more attacks by the Trumps by Jimmy Kimmel and ABC’s licenses now up for early renewal, and the debut of The Devil Wears Prada 2, Saturday Night Live had a lot to draw on tonight for its first cold open since April 11. There was also a USA 250 visit by a certain British King to a nation where some are starting to wonder if 1776 should have gone another way.
Instead they nailed it with the triple threat of Padilla, Jost and (please come back soon) guest Ansari.
In the second to last show of its 51st season, the NBC later-nighter has Olivia Rodrigo hosting and performing as the musical guest before the live crowd in 30 Rock’s Studio 8H. While the High School Musical: The Musical: The Series alum has appeared as the musical guest twice before, this is Rodrigo’s first time hosting SNL, and of course, doing double duty. Hot off her No. 1 single “Drop Dead,” Rodrigo’s new album You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love is set to drop next month with a world tour to follow later in the year.
Matt Damon and Noah Kahan will front and sing out the penultimate show of Season 51 next week. On May 16, SNL legend Will Ferrell and that up-and-comer Paul McCartney bring the latest run of the Lorne Michaels-created show to an end for one more year.
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