“SNL” landed the big interview in the breaking news around the suspected Chinese spy balloon, hours after it was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday.
In the show’s cold open, Chloe Fineman starred as MSNBC host Katy Tur interviewing the floating, and indignant, spy balloon itself (Bowen Yang).
“Well, I’m sorry you are in the water, but thank you for speaking to us,” Tur said to the balloon.
The balloon tells Tur, “You got me. Congrats, you shot a balloon.”
“I entertain you people for four days but then get shot down by Biden! I can’t believe I’m Joe’s Osama,” the balloon added.
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“What were you doing flying over Montana?” Tur asked.
“I love the show ‘Yellowstone.’ It’s like ‘Succession,’ but outside,” the balloon answered.
When the balloon was asked about legitimate spying concerns, he became more indignant:
“By me, a balloon? Everyone is being surveilled constantly. But it’s, ‘Shoot the balloon!’ never ‘Unplug Alexa!’ If you care so much about data why do you keep bank passwords in the notes app?”
Kenan Thompson’s Pentagon official: ‘We popped the balloon’
The skit opened with Tur announcing, “Our long national nightmare is over. We got the balloon.”
Tur added: “The discovery of the massive surveillance balloon earlier this week inflamed already volatile U.S.-Chinese relations, and had many on the right calling the Biden administration’s response soft, including this tweet from Donald Trump Jr. saying: ‘If my Dad was president, there would be no balloons.”
The anchor then interviewed stern Pentagon official General William Hamilton (Kenan Thompson) who announced, “We popped the balloon.”
“The balloon was somehow able to get past our West Coast anti-balloon defense system, the Seattle Space Needle,” Thompson added.
‘Weekend Update’ joked about the spy balloon controversy
“Weekend Update” newscaster Colin Jost joked about the spy balloon controversy.
“Earlier today an American fighter jet shut down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that had been spotted crossing the United States ending history’s most complicated gender reveal party,” said Jost.
“Chinese officials condemn the US decision to destroy the surveillance balloon saying it was a civilian aircraft,”Jost added, as a picture of a Spirit Airlines plane flashed onscreen. “But even civilian aircraft can be extremely dangerous.”
The show is hosted by “The Last of Us” star Pedro Pascal.