A poorly-timed “Saturday Night Live” sketch suggesting that President Donald Trump would “make ISIS great again” aired Saturday as U.S. Special Forces in northern Syria closed in on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Based on the reported timing of the raid that led to al-Baghdadi’s death — he took three of his own young children into a dead-end tunnel before detonating his suicide vest, killing all four of them — it may have even been ongoing or already completed as the NBC sketch comedy went to air. (RELATED: Trump Details ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s Last Moments)
This aged well…
Here’s the ill-timed “Make ISIS Great Again” joke that SNL was trying to smear @realDonaldTrump with around the time Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed last night. pic.twitter.com/s61ZiikVp9
— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) October 27, 2019
The show’s cold open featured a rally in New Mexico where Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump parody invited a series of people to the stage to talk about several different topics. Pete Davidson, dressed all in black, joined him as an ISIS fighter who had just been set free when U.S. forces were pulled from northern Syria.
“I was a prisoner in Syria until last week when you freed me, so I just wanted to say thank you for bringing jobs back. To ISIS. And I promise that I will make ISIS great again,” Davidson said.
“Terrific, what a great guy,” Baldwin responded. “ISIS is back in a big big way, folks. And we love that, don’t we?”
WATCH (4:00 mark):