“Saturday Night Live” mocked President Donald Trump’s egomania around the Nobel Peace Prize as well as the U.S. military action in Venezuela and Kristi Noem’s incredibly callous response to the ICE shooting in Minneapolis in the cold open for the show’s first episode of 2026.
There was no shortage of political material to catch up on, and “SNL” made the most of it in a faux Trump news conference and cabinet meeting. Colin Jost played an unhinged Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. Jeremy Culhane played Vice President JD Vance, who whined about his recent trip to Greenland in a nod to Trump’s real-life outrageous threats that the U.S. should take over the Danish territory.
“I came here to do two things,” Culhane’s Vance said. “Kick bubble gum and chew ass. And I’m all out of bubble gum.”
James Austin Johnson’s Trump opened the segment at a podium with the Presidential seal talking about the Christmas holiday.
“I got what I wanted — my very own someone else’s Nobel Prize,” Johnson’s Trump said, a nod to the bizarre development in which Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado presented her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump, in a bid to curry favour with him amid the upheaval in her home country .
“In my stocking I got Maduro — Nicolás Maduro. We did a reverse-Santa on him. We came down the chimney with a bag and took him away,” Johnson’s Trump said, referring to the U.S.’s highly criticised move to capture the Venezuelan strongman who is now in jail in New York facing drug trafficking charges.
Johnson’s Trump made a reference to “Frankenstein” director Guillermo del Toro by mentioning “my little cabinet of curiousities,” referring to his cabinet members as “various monsters and nightmares from the twisted mind of Guillermo del Trump.”
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For Homeland Security Secretary Noem, Ashley Padilla came out in the cowboy hat similar to the one the real-life Noem wore as she sought to defend the shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by ICE agents on Jan. 7. “I want to give a quick shout out to my hair and makeup team who absolutely hate me,” Padilla’s Noem said.
As for the horrendous situation in Minneapolis, Padilla’s Noem asked “Have we been perfect? Yes.” Then she gave a recruitment pitch for ICE. “Is your neck wider than your head? Are you currently wearing a Punisher T-shirt? Have you ever punched a hole in the wall because your son took a dance class? Grab a gun and saddle up, big boy.”
Jost then made a noisy entrance as Hegseth, who chugged an energy drink from an oversized mug and bragging about the military operation executed in Venezuela on Jan. 1. “We went into Venezuela — we tea-bagged their country,” Jost’s Hegseth said.
“We’re rocking out with our C’s out all over the world,” Hegseth said while using a small weight in a sexually suggestive manner. He indicated that Iran was next in line to face the force of the U.S. force, in reference to the political protests that have left hundreds of people dead in the Middle Eastern country. “You don’t dare kill your protestors — that’s our thing,” Jost’s Hegseth warned. “We’re going to F you right back.”
Johnson’s Trump came back to the podium to finish out the news conference. “Even I know you’re doing that wrong,” he said, pointing to Jost’s over-amped Hegseth. “The midterms are canceled,” he declared before going into the classic “Live from New York, it’s ‘Saturday Night” transition into the credits.
In the final minutes of the show, before the cast gathered on stage for the traditional closing, the show paid tribute to Bob Weir, the founding member of the Grateful Dead, who died Jan. 10 at age 78. The legendary jam band also fronted by the late Jerry Garcia made two appearances on “SNL,” first in 1978 and then two years later.
(Pictured: James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump and Colin Jost as Pete Hegseth in the cold open for the Jan. 17 episode of “Saturday Night Live.”)
From Variety US