Going into the season 50 premiere of Saturday Night Live, there was a lot of fan speculation over who’d play the two biggest new names in the 2024 presidential election, Tim Walz and JD Vance. The cold open started with a rally for Kamala Harris (played by a returning Maya Rudolph), who introduces her supporters to Walz, played by none other than Jim Gaffigan.
“Folks, I haven’t been this excited since I got a 10 percent rebate on a leaf blower from Menards,” Gaffigan’s Walz said. “What can I say? I got that BDE, Big Dad Energy.”
Walz continued, “When Kamala Harris called me and asked me to be her vice president, I said, ‘Uh, yeah!’ This is personal for me: I love this country, and as a former teacher I need the money.”
Gaffigan was a common fan casting choice for Walz, but SNL’s pick for JD Vance was someone nobody saw coming: Bowen Yang.
Yang’s Vance was awkward and sullen, starting off his speech by saying, “Donald Trump, just this afternoon you told me, ‘JD, you’re like a son to me, because I don’t like you and I’m stuck with you.’”
Vance told the crowd, “I’m sure you’ve all heard what the liberal media has been saying about me: I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo, what the hell am I doing here? I’ll tell you what I’m doing here: getting this crowd hyped!” As he said this, a bored Trump supporter behind him walked out of the room.
The casting surprises throughout this cold open weren’t limited to the politicians. Former cast member Andy Samberg stopped by to play Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff. Wearing an absurdly obvious wig, Samberg played the second gentleman with a similar goofball cadence to a lot of his past SNL characters.
“I’ve heard what the right says about me just because I’m unapologetic about being a man supporting his wife,” Samberg’s Emhoff said. “‘Oh, he’s a beta, a wife guy, a trad-huz, a little spoon.’ But you know what? If helping Kamala—who we call Mamala in my family, not sure if I mentioned that—become president is being a little spoon, then you can cup my little butt!”
The last surprise of the cold open was the new portrayal of Joe Biden. Rather than letting cast member Mikey Day reprise the role, the current president was played by former cast member Dana Carvey.
Famous for his countless presidential impressions over the decades, Carvey played Biden as a confused, incoherent, repetitive man, someone who needed help getting off the stage and who accidentally stumbled back onto it.
“I just want to say thank you, J-Biden,” Harris told him. “Thank you for putting country first, and for handing over the reins.”
A cranky Biden responded, “I didn’t want to!”
