Saturday Night Live aimed US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr in its latest cold open, using dark humour, celebrity impressions and exaggerated scenarios to poke fun at the Trump administration’s handling of military conditions, public health and food safety.
In the sketch, Colin Jost portrayed Hegseth, while James Austin Johnson played RFK Jr. The two characters addressed sailors returning from a lengthy deployment aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, turning what should have been a welcome-home speech into a series of uncomfortable and absurd jokes.
From Hegseth’s whiskey-bottle ammunition belt to RFK Jr.’s bizarre health claims, the segment delivered several pointed punchlines. Here are the biggest moments from the SNL cold open and what the sketch was making fun of.
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Jost’s Hegseth appeared before the sailors wearing an ammunition belt made from miniature bottles of Fireball Cinnamon Whisky. He began by thanking the service members for their work and asking how they were doing.
When a sailor responded, “We’re bad,” Hegseth pretended to hear “awesome” instead. The exchange set the tone for the sketch, portraying the character as dismissive of the sailors’ struggles.
The jokes continued as Hegseth congratulated the crew on returning safely to San Diego after a 322-day deployment. He claimed they had completed more than 3,000 combat missions with zero casualties and zero flight mishaps, before adding that they had also endured “zero working toilets.”
The punchline contrasted the crew’s military achievements with the poor conditions they had allegedly faced during their time at sea. The sketch also joked about mental health struggles among the sailors, using deliberately uncomfortable humour to highlight their difficulties.
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