Surprise: Trump completely changed the way 'Saturday Night Live' is made

Politics has always been embedded in Saturday Night Live's DNA, but after Donald Trump was elected president, the show was forced to evolve in ways that no one saw coming, according to former cast member Bobby Moynihan.

Speaking at the Television Critics Association summer press tour for his new CBS show, Me, Myself and I, Moynihan gave some insight into his final year on the show, which he described as "a different machine" after the election.

"It felt like I was on one show for eight years and another show for one year,” he revealed. "You get so used to never sleeping and writing constantly all night long and then you think 'well, I made it. I made it through eight years of this. It can’t get any worse.' And then all of a sudden, Trump happens."

Moynihan revealed that Trump's election threw the show into organized chaos behind the scenes -- prompting last-minute rewrites that sometimes gave new meaning to last minute.

"We were writing brand new cold-opens on Saturday morning," he revealed. "We’d come in and go 'he’s done something crazy' and we’d have to rewrite."

Moynihan admits that SNL under Trump "was a whole new ballgame, but I'm so thankful I was there ... I was in the audience for Spicer when Melissa did it for the first time. It was the hardest year, easily, for me, and also weirdly, deep down, one of my favorites."