Satire targets cost-of-living anger and questions over the president’s health

Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” segment has zeroed in on US President Donald Trump’s latest controversies, roasting both a newly minted “peace prize” from FIFA and questions about his health. In the episode, co-anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che mocked an award invented to honour Trump, with Jost joking that the trophy shows the president’s “gnarled hands dragging Earth into hell.” The sketch also riffed on Trump’s delayed MRI, hinting at concerns about his fitness as he repeatedly appears confused or sleepy in recent public appearances. The segment comes as Trump faces criticism over the cost of living and his administration’s hardline immigration policies, themes that SNL has woven into its satire throughout the season.

The writers leaned heavily on visual gags and sharp one-liners. An image of the golden peace prize—complete with a medal and certificate—became a recurring punchline about vanity awards and strongman politics. Che, meanwhile, took aim at Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s birthday celebration at a Mexican restaurant, joking that she enjoyed “her favorite food: line cook spit” while overseeing harsh immigration enforcement. The humour lands squarely in SNL’s long-running tradition of puncturing political pomp, positioning the show as a kind of parallel commentary to the week’s headlines. For viewers angry about rising prices and worried about war crimes allegations tied to recent military operations, the segment offered both catharsis and a reminder that late-night satire remains a powerful amplifier of public sentiment.

The sketch also reflects how SNL has adjusted to a media environment saturated with clips and memes. Short, shareable moments—Trump dozing off, a host grabbing an absurd trophy, a single brutal line about the economy—are designed to travel quickly on social platforms well beyond NBC’s broadcast audience. Political strategists increasingly treat these bits as part of the messaging battleground, clipping friendly jokes and bristling at harsher ones. For the show’s writers, that creates a constant challenge: how to keep the satire sharp enough to matter without becoming just another content stream folded into partisan echo chambers. This week’s edition managed to tie together three threads—economic pain, questions about competence and the spectacle of awards culture—into a single, tightly scripted run of jokes.

For Trump, the sketch is unlikely to change any minds on its own, but it contributes to a larger narrative he has struggled to shake. Polls already show some supporters blaming him for affordability woes, and images of a sleepy, joke-prone president can cement impressions of drift. Yet his base has often embraced attacks from shows like SNL as proof that elites are aligned against him, using outrage as a rallying tool. As the US heads deeper into another election cycle, late-night comedy will continue to test the boundaries of what it can say about a sitting president and how directly it can echo the language of activists and commentators. This Weekend Update suggests the writers are, for now, willing to push that line—turning a questionable peace prize and delayed medical scan into symbols of a broader unease about power, accountability and the state of the union.