'SNL' skewers vice presidential debate, mocks JD Vance and Tim Walz in cold open

Live from New York, it's the first, and possibly only, "Saturday Night Live" debate sketch of the 2024 election.

The show's latest cold open skewered this week's vice presidential debate, with Jim Gaffigan returning as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Bowen Yang again playing Sen. JD Vance. The sketch featured Vice President Kamala Harris, played by Maya Rudolph, nervously watching alongside her husband Douglas Emhoff (Andy Samberg).

Both candidates dodged a question about the crisis in the Middle East as the debate sketch began, with Vance avoiding giving an answer and Walz simply saying "the word fundamental a bunch." Harris quickly started getting worried about her running mate's performance, but Emhoff assured her Walz wouldn't "say something crazy."

"I've become friends with school shooters," Walz then said, leading a shocked Harris to break her wine glass. (Walz made this remark during the debate but later told NBC News he was "talking about meeting people where there are school shooters.")

The sketch also mocked Walz for claiming he was in Hong Kong during the Tiananmen Square protests.

"So I think what happened is, I went to Epcot," Gaffigan's character said. "You can go around the whole world, and I had a couple in the Germany section, and I thought I went to China. Anyway, I'm a knucklehead."

Vance also took his fair share of jabs, with Yang's character declaring that when he said former President Donald Trump might be America's Hitler, he "meant that as a compliment." Later, he repeatedly declared there could be no fact-checking of his statements as he insisted that Trump "peacefully gave over power."

"If we're allowed to stand up here and lie, then I would like to say I actually was in Tiananmen Square," Gaffigan's Walz responded.

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The sketch also depicted Vance and Walz as seeming to recognize some surprising common ground, with the two candidates at one point staring into each other's eyes as music played to indicate they were connecting. After spitting out her wine, Rudolph's Harris asked, "Why are they friends? Why are they vibing?"

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But by the end, Rudolph's Harris was elated by Vance declining to state that Trump lost the 2020 election, and the sketch suggested this was a last-minute victory for Walz. "Honey, we did it!" Emhoff said. "We got the sound bite!" Harris, meanwhile, pronounced the debate a "huge victory" because it "made no difference!"

For the later portion of the sketch, Dana Carvey's President Joe Biden joined the debate watch party and criticized Walz's performance. "The vice president doesn't matter," he said dismissively while eating an ice cream cone. "I mean, who the hell was Obama's VP? Nobody knows!"

Another highlight from Saturday's episode was the return of The Lonely Island, who in a digital short debuted a new song about a bizarre business idea where people can be fed sushi through a hole in a bathroom stall.

"SNL" will return next week with an episode hosted by Ariana Grande with musical guest Stevie Nicks.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'SNL' vice presidential debate cold open mocks JD Vance, Tim Walz