Overview

• Saturday Night Live opened season 51 with James Austin Johnson’s Trump interrupting Colin Jost’s Pete Hegseth to warn the show not to go too far, ending with the line, “Daddy’s watching.”
• The sketch portrayed FCC chair Brendan Carr, played by Mikey Day, as Trump’s “attack dog,” echoing recent debates over regulatory scrutiny of broadcasters.
• White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told Entertainment Weekly she would not waste time watching the sketch and quipped that she preferred to “watch paint dry.”
• Wider late-night turmoil framed the bit, with nods to CBS announcing The Late Show With Stephen Colbert will end in 2026 and ABC briefly suspending Jimmy Kimmel this summer.
• The cold open also referenced an alleged Trump birthday card to Jeffrey Epstein that Congress released last month, and the episode was hosted by Bad Bunny following his Super Bowl halftime announcement.