Lorne Michaels pressed 'Saturday Night Live' writers to go easy on Trump, says Taran Killam
Today in "the media helped propel Donald Trump's rise to power," an anecdote from the Saturday Night Live stage.
Series creator Lorne Michaels apparently pressed SNL writers to soften their handling of then-candidate Trump during his presidential run. The revelation comes from Taran Killam, a six-season veteran of the show who left in 2016.
"Lorne was being so specific about what we could and couldn’t say about him," Killam said during a recent appearance on the I Was There Too podcast.
"Lorne’s like, ‘It’ll be too old news by then, and you know, you don’t want to vilify him… I know him, I’ve seen him around at parties for years and years, and he just says whatever it is he’s thinking, and that’s his thing. But… you have to find a way in that makes him likable.'"
According to Killam, Michaels exerted pressure because he wanted to book the future U.S. president as a guest host. That did end up happening, in November 2015, just a few months after Trump formally announced his candidacy.
That's all changed in the years since, of course. SNL (in)famously skewers Trump and his administration/the entire broken GOP establishment for their boneheadedness. The series is an on-again/off-again favorite target of Trump's bully pulpit on Twitter.
So there's a fun anecdote to chew on as the countdown to 2018's midterm elections ticks below the one-month mark! GET REGISTERED AND GO VOTE.
[h/t TV Line]
Topics SNL Donald Trump
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
