Bannon gets an SNL farewell
The day after Stephen Bannon, the president’s former chief strategist, was ushered out of the White House last week, the real Donald Trump offered him an online farewell, mixing gratitude with campaign speak.
“I want to thank Steve Bannon for his service. He came to the campaign during my run against Crooked Hillary Clinton - it was great.” “Thanks S.” On Thursday “Saturday Night Live” decided to give Bannon a “proper goodbye.”
In the cold open for its limited-run “Weekend Update: Summer Edition,” the show brought back actor Alec Baldwin to play Trump at his recent rally in Phoenix. At the end of a speech, Baldwin’s Trump praised his “great team” of the “best people,” and then came to Bannon.
“One person who’s done so much for us is Steve Bannon. I want to give him a proper goodbye. Come on up here, Steve,” Baldwin’s Trump said.
And in keeping with Bannon’s portrayal in past episodes of “SNL,” a Grim Reaper-like figure walked onto the stage.
“Steve, you look great. Sorry to see you go,” said Baldwin, to which Grim Reaper Bannon replied, “You’ve only made me more powerful.”
Baldwin’s Trump then added, “Steve is going onto Breitbart. He’ll be fighting the good fight against globalist cucks like my son-in-law, Jared. Steve, we love you.”
As The Post reported, Bannon had for months been locked in battle with senior adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-inlaw.
Grim Reaper Bannon finished his time on stage by saying, “I’m going to crush you.”
After his ouster, the real Bannon also made defiant remarks.
“The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over,” he said in an interview with the Weekly Standard.
“I feel jacked up,” Bannon said. “Now I’m free. I’ve got my hands back on my weapons. Someone said, ‘It’s Bannon the Barbarian.’ ... I built a (expletive) machine at Breitbart. And now I’m about to go back, knowing what I know, and we’re about to rev that machine up.”
During the cold open, Baldwin also poked fun at other recent moments by Trump and those in his administration.
Baldwin’s Trump strode onto the stage of the Phoenix rally wearing sunglasses.
“Thank you. Thank you, Phoenix. Thank you. Wow. How about that eclipse, folks?
“Now a lot of people don’t know this but you can damage your eyes by looking into the eclipse. No one predicted this. They couldn’t have. I figured it out all by myself. Let me take these glasses off and see what you people look like.”
Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update: Summer Edition” is a limited-run series that featured anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che as well as guests, including Tina Fey in a segment about Charlottesville that some critics called tone-deaf.