‘SNL’: Anderson Cooper Addresses White House Firings; John Goodman & Fred Armisen Make Surprise Visits
Alex Moffat brought his Anderson Cooper to an all-star Saturday Night Live cold open tonight (see video below), which addressed the recent White House firings of acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. McCabe didn’t make an appearance, but Tillerson popped up in all his flustered Texan glory, in the form of special guest John Goodman. “Rexy” was soon joined onstage by other SNL vets, including Fred Armisen as Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff and tonight’s host Bill Hader as ousted White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci.
But before Tillerson came on to talk with Cooper, he had to address the firing of McCabe, who was fired Friday night, two days before he would have been eligible for a lifetime pension. Cooper went to the man who did the firing to get more insight on the situation: Jeff Sessions. Played as a hilarious combination of Gollum from Lord of the Rings and a creepy Keebler elf, Kate McKinnon once again nailed her absurd take on the Attorney General. “Sessions” tried to find a reason for the McCabe dismissal before just giving up and admitting, “Trump made me do it.”
“I’m always down, clown, but this was sneaky even for me,” said McKinnon-as-Sessions. “I’m just a simple man who wanted to make things bad for immigrants and here I am taking away the pension of a Christian white!”
After rumors that he’d be fired next, Sessions said, “Frankly, I can’t believe I lasted this long — I’m like the Energizer Bunny, I keep going and going.”
Cooper then turned to Goodman’s Tillerson, saying that he had been “gracious” on the way out the door. Goodman offered an impressive caricature of Tillerson, peering over his glasses and insisting that he had not actually been fired via Twitter.
After trying to explain how John Kelly fired him while on the toilet, Tillerson tried to keep himself together by drinking a glass of water. “It’s crazy one day how you’re the CEO of Exxon and the next day you get fired by a man who used to sell steaks in the mail,” shortly after saying this he broke a glass with his bare hands. Cooper saw this as Tillerson “still trying to process” his firing.
And in a glorious one-two punch of hilarity, Armisen and Hader topped off the cold open with their impressions of Wolff and Scaramucci. Armisen, with his unmatched delivery, played Wolff with obnoxious, nonchalant confidence while Hader’s Scaramucci was, well, just obnoxious in the best way possible.
Wolff bragged he knew about the firing months ago and then went on to tell stories about how the dysfunction of the White House was “much worse.” He shared how Trump would lineup up the staff and circle their love handles with a laser pointer every day.
“Is that really true?” asked Cooper.
Wolff shrugged and said, “Yeah” before Tillerson interrupted, yelling, “Trump is a moron!” He added, “Feels nice to say what I want! Call Jurassic Park because the ‘Rexy’ is loose!”
They went on to talk about who will be the next to get the ax. Scaramucci jumped in: “Jared Kushner is toast, baby!” Meanwhile, Wolff handicapped the top candidates to job of running the FBI. “My sources tell me it’s down to two candidates: Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke,” said Wolff, “or the President’s favorite TV detective, Monk.”
Skeptical, Cooper asked, “Are you sure about that?”
Wolff shrugged, “C’mon, it sounds right, doesn’t it?” asks Wolff before he told Cooper to shut up and to read his mind-blowing new book, in which Scaramucci is an inside source.
Watch two of the clips below.
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