‘Saturday Night Live’ Cold Open: Donald Trump Gets Ghostly Visits From Michael Flynn, Billy Bush, Hillary Clinton: WATCH

From the Senate’s passage of a tax reform bill that cuts corporate taxes from 35% to 20%, to the guilty plea by former national security advisor Michael Flynn that seems to implicate Donald Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner in contact with the Russians during the presidential campaign to the stunningly disgraceful downfall of NBC’s own Today Show host Matt Lauer for sexual harassment and worse in the workplace, there were plenty of places Saturday Night Live could have gone with the cold opening for the episode hosted by Saoirse Ronan with musical guest U2.

SNL went with that old chestnut, Alec Baldwin playing Donald Trump and Kate McKinnon as Kellyanne Conway. After Conway asked Trump to come back to an Xmas party where she’d “gotten so drunk I told the truth,” Trump described himself as sad for Christmas, and asked Conway to “withdraw $5 million from my bank account and put it in a duffel bag with my passport, a fake mustache and a bucket of chicken,” Trump (whose facial expression seems to be getting more extremely sour as the season wears on) was met by a Ghost of Christmas Past set of ghosts. The first was Flynn, who described himself as the “ghost of wicked flip,” and urged the president to come clean, after the FBI was ruining Flynn’s good life “as an honorable twice fired military man who loved to talk about how Hillary Clinton had a child sex ring in a pizza shop.” Trump lamented that he wished someone had told him not to hire Flynn, but Flynn said that Barack Obama told him exactly that. “I mean someone who’s American.”

Next up came visits from Billy Bush, Melania Trump, Vladimir Putin and, finally, the ghost of Hillary Rodham Clinton (McKinnon again), who thanked Trump for “giving me the greatest gift, sexual gratification in the form of your slow demise.” A bit obvious, all of it, if you ask me.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9wMNxbQM-4&w=605&h=340]

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