This week, Saturday Night LiveThe freezing cold pointed to Texas Senator Ted Cruz on his trip to Cancún, Mexico, while millions of Cruz constituents were left without power or water in freezing conditions after a winter storm hit Texas.
Cruz, played by Aidy Bryant, joined Britney Spears from Chloe Fineman on a talk show called Oops, you did it again to apologize for the trip, which turned into a big scandal after the senator was photographed at the airport on Wednesday.
“I’m not tanned,” a drunk, locked-up fighter told Fineman as he sat on stage with a suitcase in tow. “I cried a lot because of my Texan colleagues. And that’s why I drink in your honor. “
The program also falsified Cruz’s attempt to explain the trip on Thursday, issuing a statement blaming his daughters, who he said “asked to take a trip with friends”. (Texts obtained by the New York Times from Cruz’s wife, Heidi, cast some doubt on this story.)
Let me ask you something, ”says Bryant in the sketch. “Would a coward have the Cojones blame your young daughters for your actions? “
Fineman’s Spears, understandably, does not take this explanation well: “As someone who used to be blamed for other people’s problems when he was young, he might leave his daughters out because it could really mess with their heads,” says Fineman.
Spears is in the spotlight this month after the release of the documentary Framing Britney Spears, which examines Spears ‘personal struggles, the #FreeBritney movement and Spears’ tutelage.
These fights are referenced at various points throughout the skit: the fictional talk show is sponsored by the Notes app, a reference to the apology posted by Spears’ former partner Justin Timberlake earlier this month, and at another point, Fineman looks fixedly to the screen while a hashtag #FreeBritney flashes on the screen for a single frame.
“Are you looking to post a ragged apology 20 years late?” Fineman asks in the ad. “Do what is necessary with the Notes application.”
Joining Bryant, the next guest on an apology talk show is New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, tormented by Pete Davidson.
Cuomo has recently been criticized for misrepresenting Covid-19 asylum deaths and for threatening to “destroy” a New York deputy, among other things, and it takes a few suggestions from Fineman before a reticent Davidson murmurs an apology.
After another question from Fineman, Cuomo de Davidson then quickly launches an attack on New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who called for an investigation by the Justice Department into the response to the Cuomo pandemic.
“What did that bird bitch say about me?” Davidson rages. “I’m going to bury him in the highest tomb this city has ever seen. I’m going to hire a hobo for Rick Moranis so he thinks he’s back to universal pre-K. ”(Moranis was punched by someone who passed him on the New York sidewalk last year.)
Bryant also tries to sympathize with Davidson, only to be overthrown.
“Don’t join me,” Davidson tells Bryant. “We are not the same. I am a man, you are a clown. And if you mess with me, I will send you to a clown hospital. And when you die, I will not count your body.”
“Nor should I, thanks,” Bryant replies.
The last guest on the show is an outraged Cecily Strong as a former The Mandalorian actor Gina Carano, who asks Fineman to “explain what I did wrong”.
Carano was fired from the program earlier this month for transphobic and anti-Semitic posts on social media, including one that compared the experience of “being a conservative right now to being a Jew during the Holocaust,” according to Vox’s Emily VanDerWerff.
“Look, I never would have made that Nazi comparison if I knew that everyone would be so Nazi about it,” says Strong.
After Bryant’s Cruz’s last attempt to find someone to sympathize with – Strong dismisses him as “a pile of soup … if you compare to me, I’ll take you to the most distant deserts of Tatooine” – Fineman offers a prayer close the show.
“I pray that all of you are healthy and healthy,” she says, “and are with people who make you feel loved. … and live from New York, it’s Saturday night! “