SNL Mocks Trump’s Train Disaster Speech In Savage Cold Open Featuring Grand Jury Head: ‘She Knows If I’m Getting Indicted!’

Saturday Night Live kicked off the 13th episode of the new season by brutally lampooning former President Donald Trump’s speech in east Palestine, complete with a cameo from Fulton County election crimes grand jury foreperson Emily Kohrs.

This week’s edition of Saturday Night Live featured Woody Harrelson as guest host and rock superstar Jack White as the musical guest. Variety reported on Harrelson’s hosting gig, noting:

Woody Harrelson will return to the “Saturday Night Live” stage to host for a fifth time on Feb. 25. He leads the next batch of hosts as “SNL” returns at the end of the month for three consecutive weeks.

Musical guests for those nights include Jack White (Feb. 25), Kelsea Ballerini (March 4) and The 1975 (March 11).

Harrelson teased the appearance with an online mini-sketch promo in which he’s interrupted while listening to his pre-recorded thoughts by castmember Devon Walker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2MFkFaLB8

But before Harrelson could begin his hosting stint, the cast of the long-running sketch show performed its 937th cold open, a long-running gag in which the show performs a parody — usually related to current events — that ends with performers breaking character and exclaiming “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”

The very first cold open — on October 11, 1975 — lasted only 96 seconds and featured Chevy Chase uttering the catchphrase as a confused production assistant on a new show that was then called simply NBC’s Saturday Night. Early cold opens — colds open? — featured Chase performing a pratfall, often in character as then-President Gerald Ford.

It has evolved into an often elaborate and anticipated part of the show that can run closer to ten minutes, and almost always parody current events. Although often uneven in quality and a magnet for jabs from critics, the cold open is also often the most talked-about part of the show.

This week’s cold open featured a parody of Trump’s speech at the site of the train disaster starring James Austin Johnson in his stream-of-consciousness portrayal of the former president.

Watch above via NBC’s Saturday Night Live.