“Saturday Night Live” Takes on Defense Secretary’s Texting Blunder
It was clear that “Saturday Night Live” would not miss the opportunity to satirize the recent blunder involving Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who inadvertently revealed U.S. military plans for a strike on Houthi militia fighters in Yemen during a text chat. The slip came when he mistakenly included Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor in chief of The Atlantic, in the conversation. The only question was how the iconic sketch show would approach this controversial topic.
This weekend’s opening sketch cleverly portrayed the situation through the lens of teenage girls engrossed in their group chat. Cast members Ego Nwodim and Sarah Sherman, along with guest host Mikey Madison, brought humor to the scene as they reacted to an unexpected and alarming message. Andrew Dismukes, portraying Hegseth, dramatically read aloud the texts he was sending, which included the startling announcement: “FYI: Green light on Yemen raid!”
Dismukes continued with a series of urgent messages, stating, “Tomahawks airborne in 15 minutes!” punctuated with emojis that added a comedic flair to the gravity of the situation, such as the flag emoji, fire emoji, and even an eggplant emoji.
In a humorous exchange, Madison’s character, identifying herself as “Jennabelle,” asked, “Do we know you, bro?” to which Dismukes responded, “Oh, nice! Jennabelle from Defense, right?” However, Nwodim’s character quickly pointed out that he had mistakenly entered the wrong group text. Dismukes, playing up the absurdity, laughed and said, “LOLOLOL could you imagine if that actually happened? Homer disappear into bush GIF.” He then added, “I’m sending a PDF with updated locations of all our nuclear submarines.”
This sketch not only highlighted the absurdity of the situation but also showcased the show’s signature blend of humor and satire in addressing serious political issues.
