James Talarico crashes ‘SNL’ cold open after midterm win

After a week of surprise election results, one question remained heading into Saturday night: How would Saturday Night Live open its first show since the midterms?

The Nov. 7 cold open started at a Democratic victory party, where Chuck Schumer (Sarah Sherman) and Hakeem Jeffries (Kenan Thompson) happily took credit for the party’s wins. They were also excited about the younger Democrats headed to Congress…as long as nobody expected them to give up their jobs.

Before the party could go much further, James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump cut in, interrupting the duo to discuss the election results — a recurring bit in the SNL universe.

Credit: Screenshot: SNL on YouTube

Trump was impressed with himself for accepting the results and even put on a hard hat to talk about the White House ballroom, which was still what he cared about most, of course. But he was considerably less excited about working with millennials. He rattled off a few things he associated with the generation, including mason jar weddings and the sitcom New Girl, then got sidetracked explaining why he thought the show improved once Winston adopted a cat. In his view, giving Winston a pet finally gave the writers something to do with him. OK then?

Trump eventually circled back to the millennials he’d have to work with. When he got to Texas senator-elect James Talarico, he called him “Talafreako,” a real nickname the real Trump had used on the campaign trail. That was Talarico’s cue to walk out to cheers and offer a small correction: “That’s Senator Talafreako,” he said.

Days earlier, James Talarico had beaten Republican Ken Paxton to become the first Texas Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate since 1988. On Saturday, he used the moment to introduce himself to the audience, aside from being “the guy who’s been texting you every day asking for $5.”

Talarico also told Trump he thought they could work together and that people were ready for something different. It sounded like the start of a speech about reaching across the aisle, right up until he asked, “How many of these Trump sketches are they going to do?”

“Infinity,” Trump said. The two managed to agree on one thing before handing the show over to host Druski and musical guest The Strokes, announcing together: “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!”