Aziz Ansari skewers Donald Trump, "racist" supporters in "SNL" monologue
NEW YORK -- Comedian and actor Aziz Ansari hosted the first “Saturday Night Live” episode of Donald Trump’s presidency. As expected, the show didn’t waste any time poking fun at the new administration.
After the cold open featured a message from a shirtless “Vladimir Putin,” Ansari took the stage with an eight-minute standup set.
“We can’t demonize everyone who voted for Trump,” Ansari said. “Some people are like ‘Everyone who voted for Trump is a dumb, racist, mysoginist, homphobic...’ Alright, hold on, we’re talking about 63 million people.”
“The problem is, there’s this new group,” Ansari continued. “I’m talking about a tiny slice of people that have gotten way too fired up about the Trump thing for the wrong reasons. I’m talking about the people where as soon as Trump won they’re like ‘we don’t have to pretend like we’re not racists anymore! We don’t have to pretend anymore, we can be racists again!’”
“The problem is there’s a new group.” @azizansari #SNL pic.twitter.com/Ctvk5Nu2Lb
— Saturday Night Live (@nbcsnl) January 22, 2017
Ansari described it as a “new, lowercase KKK movement” filled with “casual white supremacists” that might tell people of color to “go back to Africa” or “go back to Mexico” now that Mr. Trump is in the White House.
Later in the monologue, Ansari called on Mr. Trump to make a speech denouncing the “lowercase KKK,” because that could make a difference.
Ansari noted George W. Bush’s speech, shortly after the September 11th attacks that called Islam a religion of peace and that America wasn’t at war with Muslims, but a group of radical terrorists.
“It’s not about politics. It’s about basic human decency and remembering why the country was founded in the first place,” Ansari said.
“And I was sitting there and watching the speech, and I’m like ‘what the hell has happened? I’m sitting here wistfully watching old George W. Bush speeches?’” he said to laughs.
Ansari ended with a message to those Americans that are anxious about Donald Trump’s presidency.
“If you look at our country’s history, change doesn’t come from presidents. Change comes from large groups of angry people. And if day one is any indication, you are part of the largest group of angry people I have ever seen,” he said, referring to the women’s marches around the world.