SNL bids a pre-emptive farewell to Trump with 'Hallelujah'

(Image credit: NBC/Screenshot)

last updated 21 May 2017

Saturday Night Live opened its 42nd season finale, hosted by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, with a reprise of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," the song the show used to mourn Hillary Clinton's election loss. This time around, Alec Baldwin's President Trump was the one at the piano, wearing a Russian flag pin to reference the scandals many believe will end his presidency well before 2020.

As Trump sings, he is gradually joined by the rest of his SNL administration: Kate McKinnon as spin doctor Kellyanne Conway, Beck Bennett as Vice President Pence, and even Scarlett Johansson in a cameo reprisal of her role as Ivanka Trump to round out the First Family. "I'm not giving up because I didn't do anything wrong," Trump says at the end of the song. "But I can't speak for these people."

The real life President Trump may not be giving up, but Baldwin is expected to step down from his role as SNL's president. "Look, I'd love to keep doing this per my availability, but I have other things I'm going to do, so I guess we'll figure it out," he told The Hollywood Reporter in a recent interview. This episode also marked the last appearance of longtime cast members Bobby Moynihan and Vanessa Bayer. Watch the full skit below. Bonnie Kristian

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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