Darrell Hammond: How Trump Crushed It on ‘SNL’
NBC legend shares why future President shined on New York's toughest stage
Some “Saturday Night Live” staffers revolted over the show allowing Donald Trump to host the NBC sketch show in 2015.
The moment came early in his first presidential campaign, before “SNL” became a nonstop anti-Trump program.
A few blamed Trump’s appearance for his stunning 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton. A 2025 book on show creator Lorne Michaels captured that sentiment.
Writer Tim Robinson, who would go on to create his own hit Netflix show I Think You Should Leave, is quoted saying at the time, “Lorne has lost his f—ing mind and someone needs to shoot him in the back of the head.”
That’s not how Darrell Hammond recalls his time working alongside Trump on “SNL.” The future president hosted the show twice – first in 2004 at the height of his “Apprentice” fame and, later, at the dawn of his first presidential campaign in 2015.
Hammond opened up about the former with the host of “Ryan Schuiling Live” on 630 KHOW in Denver, Colorado.
Hammond impersonated Trump several times on the series. His time working with the mogul, though, proved surprising on a few levels.
“I enjoyed my time with [Trump]. He was very curious and very insightful, and he worked really hard,” Hammond said of appearing with the real estate mogul in 2004. “You didn’t see that braggadaccio thing that poeple associate with him.”
The two appeared together in a sketch featuring Hammond as Trump and Trump as a janitor.
“I said, ‘you stay later and come earlier than anyone, ever.’ He said, ‘well, listen, I can’t act. I gotta figure out a way to be funny here with words that somebody else wrote,'” Hammond recalled. “‘I think what I’m gonna do is, I’m gonna ad lib, paraphrase once in a while, like I’ll say something off script.'”
“And I thought, it worked. You realize the more authentic you are, the funnier you are, and he intuitively understood that. And, fair enough, he went out and had a really great show,” the comic recalled.