‘Saturday Night Live’ Cold Open Skewers ‘Fox & Friends’ As Hosts Try To Defend Network Against Dominion’s Defamation Lawsuit
05.03.2023 - 08:39
/ deadline.com
Saturday Night Live went with the week’s biggest media stories for its cold open: the revelations from Dominion Voting Systems bombshell filing in its defamation lawsuit against Fox News. Watch a clip below.
Once again choosing the setting of Fox & Friends to skewer the network, hosts Steve Doocy (Mikey Day), Ainsley Earhardt (Heidi Gardner) and Brian Kilmeade (Bowen Yang) explained the revelations and why the network hasn’t covered the case.
“Rupert Murdoch admitted that Fox News aired election fraud conspiracies to get ratings even though everyone at Fox knew they were false,” Day’s Doocy says.
“Uh-oh. I didn’t. Loop a brother in next time,” Yang’s Kilmeade says.
Gardner’s Earhardt then tells viewers, “You may be wondering, if it is such a big story, why haven’t I heard about it on Fox?”
“I think it is because they are suing us for $1.6 billion,” Kilmeade says.
Doocy corrects him. “No, it’s complete BS. The media is taking private texts from Fox News hosts and showing them completely out of context.”
In reality, Fox News actually has contended that Dominion, in its court filings, has taken texts and emails gathered in its lawsuit and taken them out of context.
A scheduled release on Tuesday of exhibits in the case should give added context to some of the texts, emails and deposition statements that Dominion has cited in its filings. But in the SNL skit, the Fox & Friends hosts try to explain the context.
They point to one text from Sean Hannity: “Rudy Giuliani is insane.”
“How could you leave out the rest?” Kilmeade says. “It’s Rudy Giuliani is insane-ly hot.“
The skit also featured an appearance from Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO who is one of the network’s most prolific sponsors — and one of the most visible