Saturday Night Live kicked off with an Easter-themed sketch, featuring Donald Trump (James Austin Johnson) likening himself to the son of God.
“You know, a lot of people are calling me the Messiah — because of the mess I, uh, created in the economy,” said Johnson in character as Trump.
“Or perhaps it’s because of my fantastic tariffs — they were so effective I had to put a stop to them.”
This joke referenced Trump’s decision to scale back on a critical economic initiative — sweeping tariffs — after bond markets indicated that the U.S. economy was teetering on the brink. The stock market reacted negatively when Trump announced a pause on the tariffs, but later fell again due to concerns over the 145% tariffs on China, a key trading partner.
The sketch began with Mikey Day portraying Jesus, recreating the scene from the Bible where Christ becomes outraged upon finding money changers conducting business in the temple.
“This will not stand. I will cleanse this place of all its money,” declared Jesus.
At that moment, Trump made his entrance.
“Does this remind you of anyone?” Trump remarked. “I also eliminated money last week, but instead of just one temple, I did it for an entire country.”
This marked the second consecutive week that the show parodied Trump’s tariffs; Johnson had previously appeared in the sketch to satirize the president’s implementation of the new policy.
By that point, the markets had already taken a significant downturn. This week, Trump and his team insisted on maintaining the tariffs. Yet by Wednesday, the president announced a 90-day pause on Truth Social, while concerns continued over a potential trade conflict with China. Earlier that day, reports emerged that iPhones and other tech products would be exempt from the tariffs.
“We had to halt things,” Johnson’s Trump explained. “But now everything is back exactly as it was, minus a few trillion dollars and an unprecedented transfer of wealth from the middle class to my friends.”
The sketch also poked fun at Trump’s casual attitude toward religion.
“Today marks the start of Passover for our Jewish friends, and we call it Passover because it’s when we skip right over the little kosher aisle in the grocery store and head straight for the Easter candy. Fish in a jar? No thanks, I’ll take a Peep.”
He continued, “We adore Easter. We adore bunnies. We love hunting for eggs — just like everyone in the grocery store is doing right now, because they cost a billion, trillion dollars. I thought that was the whole point of the campaign, but I can’t seem to crack it. Egg joke incoming!”
“We’re definitely looking forward to Easter Mass,” he said. “Easter Mass is always full, right? It’s a pity. Some people only show up to church on Christmas and Easter. Not me. I skip those days too.”
Johnson broke the fourth wall during the sketch, pointing out Emil Wakim, who was standing next to Day, and stating, “He thinks he should be playing Jesus. He was telling everyone backstage, ‘You know, the real Jesus would have looked like me. In real life. But we’d prefer not to think about that, so we have Mikey Day, with his big beautiful blue eyes!’”
