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SNL pits Trump against Congress on Deal or No Deal: Shutdown Edition

Maybe the president's game show past will let him end the shutdown this way.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper

President Donald Trump (as played by Alec Baldwin) returned to his game show roots Saturday night in a Deal or No Deal-themed cold open of Saturday Night Live.

Kenan Thompson hosted the game show as Steve Harvey (who explained why Howie Mandel wasn't hosting). The president was invited to open briefcases offering deals from various members of Congress in an attempt to end the history-making government shutdown. As with actual deal attempts, it didn't go well.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Kate McKinnon) offered the president $1 billion, "and you say 'Nancy's my mama.'" Sen. Chuck Schumer (Alex Moffat) started by offering the president "whatever you want," but was talked up to "$15 and a pastrami on rye."  Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Melissa Villaseñor) and Maxine Waters (Leslie Jones) and others Congress members also made appearances. 

But the president wasn't buying. Until a Clemson football player (Pete Davidson) came up with a White Castle Crave Case offering something Trump really does like.

The show was sponsored in part by "Green Beef -- it shouldn't be green, but ain't nobody there at the FDA to inspect it."