Viewers blasted “Saturday Night Live’s” cold opener after the show mocked this week’s congressional hearings on antisemitism on college campuses — hours after University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned amid a flurry of backlash over her testimony.
The opening sketch, arrange as a C-SPAN broadcast, tried to poke fun on the presidents of Harvard, UPenn and MIT — portrayed by Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner and Chloe Fineman, respectively — as they testified before the House Education Committee.
There have been few laughs to be heard from the audience.
Viewers took to social media to slam the sketch, which some saw as undermining the seriousness of incidents of antisemitism on college campuses in recent weeks since Israel’s war with Hamas began on Oct. 7.
Others thought it was just flat-out bad.
Newcomer Chloe Troast played Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), an outspoken Donald Trump supporter, and targeted her line of questioning in the course of the hearing because the butt of the sketch.
“I’m going to start yelling questions at these women like Billy Eichner,” she says.
“Antisemitism — yay or nay?” she screams on the three women. “Yes or no! Is asking for the genocide of Jews against the code of conduct for Harvard?”
“Well, it is dependent upon the context,” answers Nwodim’s Dr. Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard.
“What? That may’t be your answer,” Troast’s Stefanik shoots back.
“UPenn lady, same query, yes or no?” she asks Gardner’s Magill.
“Well, we’re serious about stopping all types of hatred, anti-semitism, Islamophobia,” she answers. Stefanik then poses the identical query to Fineman’s Dr. Sally Kornbluth, president of MIT.
“In case you don’t say yes, you’re going to make me look good, which is actually, really hard to do,” Troast’s Stefanik says. “So I’ll ask you straight up. Do you think that genocide is bad?”
Fineman’s Kornbluth responds: “Could I submit a solution in writing at a later date?”
“Am I winning this hearing?” an incredulous Stefanik says. “Anyone pinch me!”
The three presidents breathe a sigh of relief when Stefanik learns her time is up, but one other member of the committee yields their time back to her, giving her one other probability to speak.
“I’m here today because hate speech has no place on college campuses. Hate speech belongs in Congress, on Elon Musk’s Twitter, at private dinners with my donors and in public speeches by my work husband, Donald Trump,” Troast’s Stefanik says.
The sketch also ridiculed the vague, evasive answers from the educational leaders.
“Only a hate-filled, anti-Semitic SNL could do a sketch in regards to the anti-Semitic college presidents testifying in front of Congress and make the questioner Congresswoman Stefanik the goal of the sketch,” radio host Mark Simone tweeted.
“Moderately remarkable how few laughs there have been in #SNL’s Cold Open. They – oddly – tried to skewer Elise Stefanik (who by all accounts won the day) as shrill. I suppose I used to be under the misapprehension that calling a girl “shrill” was sexist,” one X user posted.
“The worst cold open on SNL I’ve ever seen the audience was barely laughing,” one other wrote.
“Gotta be the worst cold open I’ve ever seen on SNL absolutely abysmal,” one other said.
One other user remarked: “SNL is taking an enormous swing within the cold open and it looks prefer it’s going to be a miss…”
While largely falling flat, the sketch was somewhat saved by an appearance from show veteran Kenan Thompson, who played the president of the web University of Phoenix.
“Can you’re taking an ethical stance on anything? Can anyone here say yes to a single query?” Troast’s Stefanik shouts.
“I’m willing to say yes to anything,” Thompson says.
“See, see, finally. An actual president of an actual university,” Stefanik answers.
“That’s actually our faculty motto: U of P: We’re an actual university,” he answers.
Her Stefanik asks if he would promise to eliminate antisemitism from the varsity’s campus.
“My campus is the web. Antisemitism is form of our hottest major, and our mascot is porn,” Thompson quipped.
The show’s creator and longtime producer Lorne Michaels, 79, was born to a Jewish family on a kibbutz in then-British mandate Palestine before his family moved to Toronto.
The true Stefanik, meanwhile, gave a scorching response when news of Magill’s resignation broke.
“One down. Two to go,” the congresswoman posted on X.