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'SNL' Attempts To Pack All The Controversies Into Trump's First Press Conference

Alec Baldwin returns to answer questions about Russia, Obamacare, conflicts of interest, and more

Saturday Night Live returned from its holiday break last night (January 14), leading the show with a sketch depicting president-elect Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) in his first press conference. The sketch was loaded with references to every major controversy over the past week, with nearly every SNL cast member playing a journalist hungry to press Trump on many big questions leading up to his inauguration.

Among the topics discussed were the unverified memos published by BuzzFeed (referred to in the sketch as the ones with the "the big Russian pee-pee party," which, according to Baldwin-as-Trump, "wasn't as cool as it sounds"), Trump's inability to attract popular musicians to play his inauguration, Republicans' repeal of Obamacare without a replacement plan, Trump's plan to hand over his businesses to his sons to avoid perception of conflict of interests (and the giant stack of folders that came with it), Trump's spat with BuzzFeed and CNN, Trump inviting Family Feud host Steve Harvey to Trump Tower to discuss housing policy, and, of course, a question from Trump's buddy Vladimir Putin himself.

NBC

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If that feels like a lot to cover in one sketch—it was! It's also illustrative of a problem SNL's going to keep running into during the Trump presidency; how can you pile every single thing Trump does in any given week into one cold open sketch and/or Weekend Update?

SNL got lucky here, as Trump's actual press conference may have been crazier and more disjointed than the fictionalized one. But when the future President is giving the writers enough material to fill out an entire episode, SNL is going to run into the same problem as the media: how do you cover everything?

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