Comedian Chris Rock got way political in his monologue on “Saturday Night Live,” bashing President Donald Trump and pleading with viewers to vote.
He addressed, first off, the “elephant in the room: President Trump’s in the hospital from COVID and I just want to say my heart goes out to COVID,” the comedian quipped to laugher from the program’s first live audience since March. (The smaller crowd wore face masks during the show.)
During this pandemic, Rock suggested that it’s time to “renegotiate our relationship to the government” — and rethink the whole president thing.
“I mean, what job do you have for four years no matter what?” he asked. “Like, if you hired a cook and he was making people vomit every day, do you sit there and go, ‘Well, he’s got a four-year deal. We’ve just got to vomit for four more years.’”
Rock added: “Hey, we’ve got to take this serious. We’ve got to get out there, we’ve got to vote. But ... the government does not want you to vote. Why do I know they don’t want you to vote? Because Election Day’s a Tuesday in November ... If this show was ‘Tuesday Night Live,’ it would have got canceled in 1975,” he quipped.
But really, seriously, “we can lick this, okay? We can beat this, if we all work together,” he said.
Rock ended with a quote from writer James Baldwin: “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it’s faced.”
Check out the video up top.
Sign up for Peacock
to stream NBCU shows.