The SNL cold open satirized President Donald Trump receiving a Nobel Peace Prize and capturing Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, with James Austin Johnson reprising his Trump impersonation. The sketch featured comedic portrayals of Trump’s cabinet, including Marco Rubio, JD Vance, and Kristi Noem, poking fun at their roles and interactions during a fictional cabinet meeting. Colin Jost appeared as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, humorously addressing the Venezuela situation and ending with a gag about midterms being canceled.
Saturday Night Live‘s newest cold open skewered President Donald Trump over being gifted a Nobel Peace Prize, capturing Venezuela leader Nicolas Maduro, deploying ICE in Minnesota, and more.
On the Saturday, January 17 episode of SNL — the first of 2026 after a holiday hiatus — James Austin Johnson once again portrayed the POTUS, this time during a cabinet meeting.
“I hope everyone had a nice holiday and got what they wanted for Christmas,” Trump said at the podium. “I got what I wanted: my very own someone else’s Nobel Prize! Which I’ll cherish.”
He added, “And in my stocking, I got Maduro — [leader of Venezuela] Nicolas Maduro! We did a reverse Santa on him. We came down the chimney with a bag and took him away.”
After that, Trump said he would bring the nation up to speed on all of the “exciting things we’ve been doing.” He introduced cabinet members, Secretary of State Marco Rubio (Marcello Hernandez) and Vice President JD Vance (Jeremy Culhane).
“These guys are great,” the POTUS said. “They’re helping me do so many legal-ish things to try to get people to stop talking about Epstein, right?”
After Rubio handed him a piece of paper, Trump continued, “Oh, Marco’s passing me a note, here. Don’t read this out loud, but maybe don’t talk about that. Also, do you like me? Circle yes or no.” (This was a reference to the POTUS reading aloud a personal note from Rubio during a meeting with oil executives.)
Rubio began delivering a message to the people of Cuba (which Trump said was “next”), but the POTUS interrupted him and then brought up Vance, who “got a makeover” to speak. (Bowen Yang previously played Vance on SNL, but Yang’s last show was on December 20.)
“I came here to do two things: kick bubblegum and chew a**,” the VP declared. “And I’m all out of bubblegum.”
Before Vance continued his remarks, Trump announced, “By the way, while you’re talking, I’m just gonna sort of walk around in the background and look out windows,” a callback to the POTUS recently doing so during the meeting with oil executives.
Next, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem (Veronika Slowikowska) also spoke about the ICE raids in Minnesota.
“Obviously, there have been clashes on both sides in Minneapolis. And have we been perfect? Yes,” she said, going to list the requirements for joining ICe. They included having a “neck wider than head,” wearing a Punisher T-shirt,” and punching a hole in the wall “because your son took a dance class.”
Finally, Colin Jost reprised his role as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who spoke about the situation with Venezuela after the U.S. captured its leader.
Hegseth ended his message by doing kettlebell swings, to which Trump pointed out, “That was great, buddy. Even I know you’re doing that wrong. Also, midterms are canceled.”
