Trump Rails Against ‘SNL,’ Again, And Suggests ‘Retribution’ for NBC

By Ted Johnson

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – WASHINGTON — President Trump once again took aim at “Saturday Night Live,” suggesting that there should be a price to pay by TV networks for delivering such scathing satire.

“Nothing funny about tired on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!” Trump wrote on Sunday morning.

On Saturday’s show, “SNL” opened with a sketch featuring Alec Baldwin as Trump and mocking the president’s declaration of a national emergency to secure funding for a wall along the southern border. The skit skewered Trump’s Rose Garden announcement on Friday as a meandering series of pronouncements.

“We need wall, because wall works. Wall makes safe. You don’t have to be smart to understand that, and in fact it’s even easier to understand if you’re not that smart.”

This was the seventh tweet that Trump has sent out blasting “Saturday Night Live” since he hosted the show in November 2015 in the midst of his presidential campaign. But he’s lately been suggesting that some sort of legal action should be taken against .

“A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can’t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?” he wrote on Dec. 16.

Some presidents have taken “Saturday Night Live” with good humor. President George H.W. Bush invited Dana Carvey to the White House after Carvey impersonated him on the show during the 1992 presidential campaign. In 1976, Gerald R. Ford all but embraced Chevy Chase’s portrayal of him as a klutz by inviting the comedian to the White House and even doing a cameo on “SNL.”