Saturday Night Live has ripped Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz for his debate performance against Republican rival JD Vance.
The candidates went head-to-head on Tuesday, with Vance walking away the victor, according to Newsweek readers and writers.
SNL’s cold open skit parodied some of the debate’s key moments, staged with impersonations of Vice President Kamala Harris, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, and President Joe Biden watching the events unfold on television.
The Minnesota governor faced criticism for a verbal gaffe when discussing school shootings, and for seeming unprepared for some questions, with some analysts saying he looked “like a deer in the headlights.”
Al Goldis/ASSOCIATED PRESS
In the skit, when the moderators ask Jim Gaffigan’s Walz about how he would solve the crisis in the Middle East, he answers, “I don’t know the answer, so I’m going to just say the word fundamental a bunch because debating is 30 percent ‘fun’ and 70 percent ‘demental.’ How am I doing?”
In response to a question about abortion and reproductive rights, Gaffigan’s Walz starts strongly, reminding views about Minnesota’s progressive stance on the issue before trailing off into a description of his constituents’ general lack of sex drive.
“You know, in Minnesota, we restored a woman’s right to choose because we trust women,” he said. “And in Minnesota we also happen to have the lowest teen pregnancy rates because everyone’s wearing a lot of layers and eating a lot of lake fish. Just not a horny place.”
SNL posted a clip of the sketch on X, formerly Twitter, garnering 182,000 views by Sunday morning.
Newsweek has contacted the Harris/Walz campaign via email for comment outside working hours.
Maya Rudolph’s Harris smashes her wineglass when Gaffigan’s Walz mistakenly says he’s “friends with school shooters,” while Andy Samberg’s Emhoff despairs that Walz is giving “goofy white guys” a bad name.
“As a goofy white guy, this really sets my fellas back,” Samberg’s Emhoff said. “I’m in a group chat with Josh Gad and Jason Kelsey and the mood is dark.”
Even Dana Carvey’s Biden, despite his own debate travails against Donald Trump in June, criticizes Walz, watching the debate on television alongside Harris and Emhoff.
“Come on Walz. What’s wrong with that guy? It’s crazy. Get your facts straight, Jack. You gotta hit him with the ‘no joke,’ ‘here’s the deal,’ ‘let me be clear.’ Anyway, guess what? And by the way, you should be talking about all the great things we’ve done.”
Spoofing Walz comes in the context of SNL‘s frequent mocking and caricaturing of Trump, with the Republican presidential candidate feuding with the show, particularly over actor Alec Baldwin’s impressions of him. In 2022, he wrote on Truth Social that it was not funny or smart and had low ratings.