Colin Jost issues brutal takedown to Donald Trump in risky SNL sketch

Colin Jost didn’t just skewer Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” recently — he launched a full-blown satirical assault, one of the most aggressive jabs the anchor has delivered in years. The catalyst was a bizarre real-world development: Trump’s reported demand that the Washington Commanders’ new stadium be named after him, coupled with new public interest in the leaked Jeffrey Epstein emails. Jost seized the moment and pressed into territory few late-night comics dare to tread: ego, scandal, and elite entitlement.

The sequence began when Jost referenced reports that Trump told the Commanders’ owners he expected the stadium to bear his name — a request that insiders suggested was backed by a threat to freeze the deal if denied. Jost delivered the line: “President Trump told the owners of the Washington Commanders that he wants their new stadium to be named in his honor. So say hello to the Dementia Dome.” Immediately the studio audience howled, and the clip began circulating widely online.

But Jost didn’t stop at the stadium joke. He pivoted into the Epstein revelations: newly released emails in which Epstein alleged Trump “knew about the girls.” Jost cracked: “It’s bombshell news that legal experts are calling, ‘Duh.’” He added: “It’s just shocking how many alleged sexual predators Trump was friends with. Epstein, Prince Andrew, and Diddy. I mean, that’s a lot, you know? I mean, think about your own friend group. How many predators do you know? One, maybe two. But Trump’s like the Forrest Gump of meeting famous predators.”

In that moment, Jost tapped into deeper frustration: not merely that Trump craves stadium naming rights or hangs out with scandal-tainted figures, but that his pattern of associations keeps resurfacing without consequence. Jost’s framing suggested that the real story isn’t one scandal — it’s the normalization of dodging accountability. He turned the joke inward: the audience wasn’t simply watching Trump’s antics; they were watching the gilded version of impunity.

The segment caught fire online within hours. Clips of Jost’s “Dementia Dome” punchline and the “Forrest Gump of meeting famous predators” line spread across Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and X, with thousands of shares, comments and memes. Deadline noted the episode “garners crowd favor with scorching Epstein list jokes.” News outlets followed up by treating the bit as a cultural moment in political comedy — Rolling Stone called it “sharp, ruthless, and unignorable.”

Jost’s risk was high: Trump is no stranger to targeting late-night hosts and skewering networks that mock him. However, Jost leveraged his role to speak more like an editorialist than a standard late-night comic. By zeroing in on a real estate demand (the stadium) and weaving it into a larger pattern of scandal and self-aggrandizement, he extended the joke into critique. The effect: what felt like a punchline became a deeper commentary on power, celebrity, and accountability.

Behind the comedy, though, is history. Colin Jost has anchored Weekend Update alongside Michael Che since 2014 and has become one of the show’s most recognizable voices in political satire. In recent cycles, SNL has accelerated its political commentary, but rarely with this level of direct personal critique. By targeting Trump’s closest controversies in one go, Jost raised the bar. Meanwhile, Michael Che’s participation in the segment further amplified the message: together the pair turned their joke desk into a newsroom of moral indictment.

The impact extended beyond laughs. Social media commentators pointed out that Jost’s framing forced viewers to re-examine what “friendship with scandal” actually means when you’re the most powerful man in America. Some conservative commentators pushed back, accusing SNL of bias or “piling on,” but many media analysts argued the segment hit a nerve precisely because it didn’t rely on gentle satire — it used the show’s comedic platform to issue a call-out. The Daily Beast described audience reactions as “loud groans” after the punchline landed.

For Trump, the collision with SNL isn’t new. But for Jost, this might signify a turning point in his satire: moving from impersonations and broad jokes into harsher territory where the joke isn’t just waving at the scandal — it’s indicting the scaffolding of power that protects it. As the segment ended, the message hung: name the stadium after yourself, hang out with scandal-tainted friends, defy consequences — and the world may just laugh back harder than you expect.

In that sense, the show delivered more than comedy. It delivered a summation of modern celebrity-politics: spectacle built on spectacle, ego reinforced by scandal, and the only thing more brittle than the truth is the joke that refuses to stop repeating itself. With a single sketch, Colin Jost reminded us all that satire is still a potent mirror — and sometimes, the laugh isn’t the punchline.