Kate McKinnon and Alex Moffat turned up the heat —and awkward tension— as "Morning Joe" stars Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough for this week's cold open of "Saturday Night Live."
The real co-hosts of the morning show announced their engagement earlier this week. "SNL" dialed up the relationship with playful nicknames, bickering and an affectionate, nose-biting moment. Their on-air guests, Mike Barnicle (Bobby Moyinhan), Mark Halperin (Beck Bennett) and Willie Geist (Mikey Day) looked mortified.
Although Alec Baldwin did not return to the screen as Donald Trump he still made a cameo in the cold open as a call-in to "Morning Joe."
"This is John Miller, I'm sort of new here," Baldwin said. Baldwin was posing as a White House "publicist," speaking for Trump. "John Miller" is also one of the pseudonyms that the real Donald Trump used to call the press in the 90s.
"The disaster that is Obamacare has finally been repealed," he said.
Baldwin's John Miller was shocked to learn that the Affordable Care Act has not been repealed. Moffat's Scarborough explained that the proposed bill only passed in the House and still needs to go before the Senate.
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Later in the show, a skit posed a version of the 90s children's show "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego," but with White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.
The skit included two kids given the task to find the missing Conway. But the quest comes to a quick halt when one says she has no interest in finding her.
"Seven weeks in a row and no one wants to find that woman," Mikey Day said.
The Republican health care bill was a central topic for the "Weekend Update." Michael Che pointed out that the bill has 240 pre-existing conditions and used a picture of Stephen Bannon for "reference" of what 240 pre-existing conditions looks like.
The bill was condemned by national health associations, though "it did receive a rare thumbs-up from the Grim Reaper," Colin Jost said.
The "Weekend Update" also pointed out that some representatives admitted to not reading the entire bill before voting. New York Rep. Chris Collins admitted on CNN that he did not read it entirely, but said his staff did. Virginia Rep. Tom Garrett told MSNBC that people in his office read it but he didn't have time to go through it all.
"They're treating health care the way I treat an iTunes agreement," Jost said. "I'm like 'Eh, I'm sure it's fine,' and then suddenly I'm dealing with a pre-existing condition, like that U2 album they forced onto our phones."
Jost and Che also had a list of all of Trump's achievements in the first 100 days of office, but only four items rolled through the screen: Gorsuch, health care, cake and golf.
This week's "SNL" was the first time actor Chris Pine was a host on the show. His sketches were playful and musical — in his opening monologue he sang about all of the famous Chris actors he's confused with (Evans, Hemsworth and Pratt) to the tune of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl."
Rock group LCD Soundsystem was the musical guest. They performed two songs: "Call the Police" and "American Dream."
