SNL skit teases “complete zero” Jan. 6 hearings, Trump subpoena

Saturday Night Live opened this weekend with a spoof of the final January 6 Committee hearing.

The cold open also parodied the recently publicized footage of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer responding to the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“January 6 was one of the most dramatic and consequential moments in our nation’s history. So to fight back, we assembled a team of monotone nerds to do a Powerpoint,” said the committee’s chairman Bennie Thompson, played by Kenan Thompson.

“We’ve been investigating this horrible attack for more than a year but today’s session is going to be a little different. We’re going to summarize our findings, hold a history-making vote and then and only then, we all get to have a little treat.”

Rep. Liz Cheney, played by Heidi Gardner, then spoke on how the committee has spent the last few months presenting its case to all Americans, “whether you’re a Republican who’s not watching or a Democrat who’s nodding so hard your head is falling off.”

She continued: “One person is responsible for this insurrection, [former president] Donald Trump, and one person will suffer the consequences, me.”

Mikey Day’s Representative Jamie Raskin then went on to read excerpts from alt-right message boards leading up to the attack on January 6, 2021.

The FBI “scoured through all right message boards and found disturbing comments like, ‘Who wants to burn D.C. to the ground?’ ‘Anyone got room in their car for me, 10 rifles and 30 snakes?’ ‘Where do we park?’ ‘Is there a shuttle from La Quinta Inn to Coup?’ and ‘Am I at wrong Washington? I see Space Needle.’

“Yet again, President Trump didn’t raise a finger and while these hooligans were ransacking our beloved capitol, real leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were bunkered in a Senate hideaway trying to save the country.”

The sketch then cut to Pelosi, played by Chloe Fineman, on the phone asking when the vote to certify the 2020 election could resume while Schumer, played by Sarah Sherman, was preoccupied with the arrival of his DoorDash order after changing the drop-off location due to “some unfortunate treason.”

Fineman’s Pelosi then tells former Vice Present Mike Pence what she would do if Trump came to the Capitol.

“Let me tell you, if Trump comes here now I’m going to punch him in the face, right in the face and I’ll go to jail, but I’ll be happy,” she said.

The committee then played a clip of Trump, played by James Austin Johnson, on a phone call the day before Election Day in 2020.

“You know the votes don’t matter?” he said. “I’ve always said that the votes don’t matter at all. Because what even is a vote? It’s just a piece of paper you fold up and put in a hat, a guy shakes it around.”

Johnson’s Trump rambled on, before asking: “Is Mike Pence dead yet?”

The sketch concluded with members of the committee, after voting to subpoena Trump to testify, sharing their confidence that he will comply.

“Trump is 100 percent coming and this time he will be held accountable,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, played by Andrew Dismukes.

“Sure, he got away with a lot of stuff in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the early 2000s, the 2010s, and the early 2020s. But that ends now with us.”

Thompson concluded: “All right, well, I can already see this is a complete zero. I want to thank my colleagues for throwing away their summers and in some cases, their careers, to serve on this committee.”