Expect 'SNL' To Only Target Conservatives This Season | Bobby Burack

The 51st season of Saturday Night Live premieres this Saturday with Bad Bunny as host. The show will almost certainly cold-open with a spoof of a top political story of the week. There are plenty of options, be it the government shutdown, the "armed conflict" with drug cartels, the ongoing Jimmy Kimmel saga, or Taylor Swift’s new album.

Based on the past few years, the cold open will likely only mock one side of the aisle. A recent NewsBusters study found that 82 percent of Weekend Update jokes last season were aimed at conservatives, while 60 percent of cold-open characters were Republicans or conservatives. Other reviews showed SNL went after Trump seven times more often than Biden during his first term.

Like most late-night comedy, SNL has become increasingly partisan and predictable. It is hesitant to mock liberals even when the material is obvious, which is a shame because both sides provide plenty of fodder.

Imagine a bit mocking the media voices who defended the Biden administration for pressuring tech companies to censor ordinary Americans, while declaring Kimmel's suspension the act of a fascist government. That happened in real life.

Imagine another spoof mocking the Democrats who cheered Roseanne Barr’s cancellation as "accountability culture," suddenly railing against "cancel culture" during Kimmel’s absence. That also happened in real life.

After all, sketch comedy works best when the reenactment resembles the real event.

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE -- Episode 1882 -- Pictured: (l-r) Mikey Day as Stephen Miller, James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump, and Marcello Hernández as Marco Rubio during the "Executive Orders" Cold Open on Saturday, May 3, 2025 -- (Photo by: Will Heath/NBC via Getty Images)

Of course, none of those suggestions are likely to make the rundown. Instead, expect spoofed appearances from the usual targets like Trump, JD Vance, and maybe Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. What you won’t see are parodies of Jasmine Crockett or Ilhan Omar, both of whom are living caricatures of the bitter leftist ladies we have all come to regret knowing.

A sketch about Kamala Harris admitting she passed on Pete Buttigieg as a running mate because he’s gay would write itself. Put simply, Harris is the only politician to openly admit she didn’t hire someone because of their sexual preferences.

Then there’s Don Lemon, who recently declared white men the most dangerous creatures in America, despite black men accounting for 55 percent of murders in the U.S. while just 6 percent of the population.

What about Keith Olbermann? OutKick recently investigated whether he is channeling a deranged, eccentric online persona for podcast downloads or if he is genuinely unwell. The conclusion: he is genuinely unwell. Still, a sketch of him ranting in his New York apartment, threatening strangers online while surrounded by rescue pets, could be amusing.

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE -- Episode 1881 -- Pictured: (l-r) Special guest Beck Bennett as Vladimir Putin and James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump during the "White Lotus" sketch on Saturday, April 12, 2025 -- (Photo by: Holland Rainwater/NBC via Getty Images)

The biggest question is whether the show touches on the assassination of Charlie Kirk. In principle, no story should be off-limits to sketch comedy. Comedy is supposed to be cringe, uncomfortable, and blunt. That’s why Dave Chappelle is recognized as the best of his generation. However, making light of a political assassination is difficult. The one rule of comedy is that it has to be funny, and it’s hard to imagine SNL’s progressive writers pulling that off. Jimmy Kimmel already failed when he falsely claimed Kirk’s suspected assassin was part of the "MAGA gang," a lie he still hasn’t corrected.

The right way to do it would be to mock the people who celebrated Kirk’s death, or the hosts who sympathized with the alleged killer because he had a trans partner. For the record, ABC’s Matt Gutman even described the alleged killer’s text exchanges with his lover—where he admitted to the murder—as "touching." That alone is worthy of parody. What a ghoul.

This all shows that there remains an opening for an alternative to SNL, a sketch comedy show that isn’t afraid to make fun of the protected classes that SNL avoids. The model already exists. Fox News’ Gutfeld! regularly beats the legacy late-night shows in ratings for exactly that reason.

SNL made the decision to ignore half the country. It’s time for someone to capitalize on that. As Stacy Washington from SiriusXM says, some network should just hire me to write the thing.

Just saying.

Tomorrow’s cold open is going to be cringe, isn’t it?