Overview
- SNL cut the nearly four-minute segment between dress rehearsal and the Jan. 17 live show for time, then released it on its official YouTube channel.
- The piece featured new cast member Tommy Brennan, a St. Paul native, at the Weekend Update desk joking about ICE raids and replaying a viral video of an agent slipping on ice.
- Though the bit drew cheers from the studio audience, it did not appear in the televised 90-minute episode.
- After SNL shared the clip online, it amassed nearly 200,000 likes on Instagram and over 307,000 YouTube views, and some viewers criticized the cut as “cowardly.”
- The segment referenced Minnesota unrest following DHS’s Operation Metro Surge, which officials say yielded about 3,000 arrests, and the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Nicole Good, developments that have fueled protests and a federal court limit on force against peaceful demonstrators.