While Matt Damon’s hysterically entitled Brett Kavanaugh was nowhere to be seen, last night Saturday Night Live cold open saw the show’s cast impersonating the Republican senators who rammed through their favorite, accused rapist frat bro justice living it up, Kavanaugh-style. For Heidi Gardner’s CNN reporter Dana Bash, that meant enduring the beery breath of Kyle Mooney’s fist pumping John Kennedy (R-LA) cheering on a now-confirmed Supreme Court justice who lied repeatedly under oath by chanting, “Let’s ralph ’til we boof!” And Beck Bennett’s nigh-unrecognizable Mitch McConnell (R-KY), extolling the wisdom of the GOP pushing through a hyper-partisan conspiracy theorist as the will of everyone from “white men over 60 to white men over 70.” Then there was Kate McKinnon’s gleeful Lindsey Graham (R-SC), drawling in defense of a man credibly accused of multiple sexual assaults and who now stands poised to undermine women’s reproductive rights, “We made a lot of women real worried today, but I’m not getting pregnant, so I don’t care!”
Perhaps the most biting satire was at the expense of Maine’s Republican Senator Susan Collins, who, as portrayed with pitch-perfect voice-trembling hypocrisy by Cecily Strong, stood up for her decisive vote to put a man denounced by women all over the country as a sexual predator by exclaiming, “I think it’s important to believe women, until it’s time to stop.” (At one point, McKinnon’s Graham slaps his hand over Collins’ mouth to keep her from saying too much, slyly echoing the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who has said that that’s exactly what Kavanaugh did to her when she tried to cry out during his assault.)
Oh, and Alex Moffat’s Chuck Schumer showed up outside, getting a nut shot from passing Democratic fence-jumper and supporter of a potentially treasonous president’s hand-picked “get out of jail free” card Joe Manchin (D-WV), and ineffectually complaining about the transparently fixed confirmation process. Noting that he thought they might have a chance since Dr. Ford, unlike the woman who brought allegations of sexual misconduct against the other Republican nominee now on the Supreme Court, Anita Hill, was white. “But then it turned our Brett Kavanaugh was white, too, and we were completely blindsided by that.” Back in the frat, Graham and the boys (and “guy’s gal” Collins) cracked open some Miller High Life (“the champagne of beers”) for “the Natty Light of judges,” and supposedly impartial jurist who promised to make his political enemies pay, Brett Kavanaugh. Drink.