padilla

They knew he was going to break. And they leaned into it.

That’s the only explanation for this week’s Ryan Gosling-hosted episode of “Saturday Night Live,” which at times felt more like an inside cast joke than a typical “SNL” episode. But maybe it’s the “Project Hail Mary” actor’s innate charm or that there were genuine laughs to be mined from Gosling breaking character again and again throughout the show (as he did just two years ago) that made it somehow work.

Gosling kept his cool for the most part in a well-executed monologue that focused on next week’s host and musical guest Harry Styles, who was sitting in the front row and inadvertently driving Gosling to distraction with his coolness. But after that, it was a short trip to Giggle Town as Gosling tried valiantly to play a flamboyantly dressed disruptor at a wedding who keeps tapping his glasses so the bride and groom (and others) will kiss.

In a fantasy sketch, he played one of three very dumb cyclops who can’t solve easy riddles, much to the dismay of two maidens — one of them, the usually unflappable Ashley Padilla, caught the giggles from Gosling and couldn’t stop laughing. Padilla and Gosling were a teacher and principal in another sketch reading passed notes out loud that, according to text on screen, were swapped out since rehearsal, causing both to crack up uncontrollably. It was the first “SNL” sketch in a long time, not counting “Weekend Update,” that felt like a prank on the performers.

Gosling stayed in character for the most part as an annoyed hotel patron who’s been overcharged for visits from the “Goo Goo Man.” And he had less opportunity to lose his cool in some pre-taped sketches, one a violent and sad Willy Wonka parody, the other about a sentient and weird treatment for psoriasis, “Otezla.”

Whether you enjoyed the episode would depend a lot on your tolerance for “SNL” performers breaking character and causing cast members to do the same. Gosling may be one of the few hosts who can get away with it since by this point, it’s his fourth time hosting and it’s completely expected.

The show concluded with “Lies,” a video sketch from Please Don’t Destroy’s Martin Herlihy in which, among other things, Herlihy stole Colin Jost’s identity by wearing a giant head modeled after the “Weekend Update” host.

Musical guests Gorillaz performed their 25-year-old hit “Clint Eastwood” with Del the Funky Homosapien and new song “The Moon Cave” with Asha Puthli, Anoushka Shankar and Black Thought. A memorial card before the goodbyes honored Sandy Wernick, Adam Sandler’s longtime manager, who died this week.

Jost returned as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who was introduced doing a keg stand (but full of Sprite, he claimed), before launching into an explainer about the conflict in Iran. “We’re treating Iran like the breathalizer in my car and blowing it the hell up!” he said. He paraphrased Papa Roach’s “Last Resort” (“Cut Iran into pieces!”) and described the U.S. in Iran as not a war but a “situationship” where if the United States gets bored, it will go hook up with Cuba next. After shouting out “Grand Theft Auto,” Megan Fox’s return to Instagram and Quagmire from “Family Guy,” Hegseth introduced former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, whom he said was “reassigned under the bus.” Noem (Padilla) said she wasn’t fired, she self-deported and will soon be working out of a WeWork outside of Denver. “As I told my plastic surgeon, the work is never done,” she said, “you miss 100% of the dogs you don’t shoot.” It must be said: it was a relief to have a cold open that didn’t feature a rambling President Trump.

In his monologue, Gosling began going through the motions of singing a song about Earth (with a planetary model hanging down as a visual) before getting distracted by pop star Harry Styles in the front row. Styles, next week’s “SNL” host, said he just wanted to get a feel for it. Before long, smitten cast members, including Sarah Sherman and a cameraman wearing an I (Heart) Harry shirt who kept focusing on Styles, proved too much for Gosling, who called off a big song and dance number featuring most of the cast in silver space attire. Gosling started to sing “Sign of the Times” which is featured in his film “Project Hail Mary” before realizing it’s a Harry Styles song. “I’m just Ken!” Gosling flailed. Cast members consoled him, including a kiss on the cheek from Mikey Day that sent Gosling into a spontaneous giggle attack. Gosling thanked Kenan Thompson for coming out to support him. “We just came to get a better look at Harry,” Thompson replied.

Best sketch of the night: Riddle me this, why are these cyclops so dumb?

In a sketch based on a fictional book, “The Treasure of Darlor,” three cyclops led by Gosling must get past two maidens (Padilla and Veronika Slowikowska) in order to get the key to a cave that will grant them, presumably, the treasure of the book’s title. But the cyclops can’t solve the simplest of riddles and the increasingly exasperated maidens, who’ll be free once a riddle is solved, can’t get them to stop approaching the cave or from making terrible guesses. It’s hard to tell how far off script the sketch went once Gosling and Padilla began breaking character, but the characters are so silly and dumb that precision actually doesn’t matter too much and the result is a ramshackle hilarity as they keep going in semantic circles.

Also good: No notes. Seriously, no more notes, please

Maybe this was funnier for those on stage than for those watching at home, but the audacity of a sketch in which material is swapped out before air time (as we’re told in an on-screen warning) to unaware cast members and the host, breathed life into what would have otherwise been a pretty routine sketch about a teacher (Padilla) and a principal (Gosling) trying to discipline unruly students. Padilla almost never breaks in sketches; she’s a rock-solid performer, but without any advance knowledge of the jokes in notes she had to read out loud, she simply crumbled. Gosling never had a chance. The jokes in the notes are not all great, but they’re enough to have their intended effect on the two performers. The laughing becomes infectious.

‘Weekend Update’ winner: Pastor Update was really itemizing those backstage snacks

The next best thing we might get to a new “What Up With That?” sketch might be Thompson as Pastor Update, the official pastor to “Weekend Update” who was joined by his bandleader Teddy (James Austin Johnson). The two brought some soulful rumination on catered snacks and beautiful women with big foreheads. When Michael Che asked for something a little more uplifting, Pastor Update instead went after Che’s online habits, praying he “gets off his laptop looking at them nasty pictures on the computer.” The laptop, he sang, has been infected with so many nasty viruses it sounds like a lawnmower starting up.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) is preparing for President Trump to declare a national emergency in order to seize control of this year’s midterm elections from the states, including by bracing his Senate colleagues for a vote in which they would be forced to either co-sign on the power grab or resist it.

In the wake of reporting last week that conservative activists with connections to the White House were circulating such an order, Padilla sent a letter to his Senate colleagues Friday stating that any such order would be “wildly illegal and unconstitutional,” and would no doubt face “extremely strict scrutiny” in the courts.

“Nevertheless, if the President does escalate his unprecedented assault on our democracy by declaring an election-related emergency, I will swiftly introduce a privileged resolution [and] force a vote in the Senate to terminate the fake emergency,” wrote Padilla, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration.

Padilla wrote that such an order — which could possibly “include banning mail-in voting, eliminating major voting registration methods, voter purges, and/or new document barriers for registering to vote and voting” — would clearly go beyond Trump’s authority.

“Put simply, no President has the power under the Constitution or any law to take over elections, and no declaration or order can create one out of thin air,” Padilla wrote.

The same day Padilla sent his letter, Trump was asked whether he was considering declaring a national emergency around the midterms. “Who told you that?” he asked — before saying he was not considering such an order.

The White House referred The Times to that exchange when asked Tuesday for comment on Padilla’s letter.

If Trump did declare such an emergency, a “privileged resolution,” as Padilla proposed, would require the full Senate to vote on the record on whether or not to terminate it — forcing any Senate allies of the president to own the policy politically, along with him.

Experts say there is no evidence that U.S. elections are significantly affected or swung by widespread fraud or foreign interference, despite robust efforts by Trump and his allies for years to find it.

Nonetheless, Trump has been emphatic that such fraud is occurring, particularly in blue states such as California that allow for mail-in ballots and do not have strict voter ID laws. He and others in his administration have asserted, again without evidence, that large numbers of noncitizen residents are casting votes and that others are “harvesting” ballots out of the mail and filling them out in bulk.

Soon after taking office, Trump issued an executive order purporting to require voters to show proof of U.S. citizenship before registering and barring the counting of mail-in ballots received after election day, but it was largely blocked by the courts.

Trump’s loyalist Justice Department sued red and blue states across the country for their full voter rolls, but those efforts also have largely been blocked, including in California. The FBI also raided an elections office in Georgia that has been the focus of Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

Trump is also pushing for the passage of the Save America Act, a voter ID bill passed by the House, but it has stalled in the Senate.

In recent weeks, Trump has expressed frustration that his demands around voting security have not translated into changes in blue state policies ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, where his shrinking approval could translate into major gains for Democrats.

Last month, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, “I have searched the depths of Legal Arguments not yet articulated or vetted on this subject, and will be presenting an irrefutable one in the very near future. There will be Voter I.D. for the Midterm Elections, whether approved by Congress or not!”

Then, last week, the Washington Post reported that a draft executive order being circulated by activists with ties to Trump suggests that unproven claims of Chinese interference in the 2020 election could be used as a pretext to declare an elections emergency granting Trump sweeping authority to unilaterally institute the changes he wants to see in state-run elections.

Election experts said the Constitution is clear that states control and run elections, not with the executive branch.

Democrats have widely denounced any federal takeover of elections by Trump. And some Republicans have expressed similar concerns, including Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who chairs the Senate rules committee.

In the Wall Street Journal last year, McConnell warned against Trump or any Republican president asserting sweeping authority to control elections, in part because Democrats would then be empowered to claim similar authority if and when they retake power.

McConnell’s office referred The Times to that Journal opinion piece when asked about the circulating emergency order and Padilla’s resolution.

Padilla’s office said his resolution would be introduced in response to an emergency declaration by Trump, but hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.

“Instead of trying to evade accountability at the ballot box,” Padilla wrote, “the President should focus on the needs of Americans struggling to pay for groceries, health care, housing and other everyday needs and put these illegal and unconstitutional election orders in the trash can where they belong.”

The United States, President Trump said Tuesday night, is “bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever.”

“We are the hottest country anywhere in the world,” Trump said in his State of the Union address. “The economy is roaring like never before. America is respected again like never before. We’re winning so much we can’t take it.”

Not so, countered U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.).

“We just heard Donald Trump do what he does best: lie,” Padilla said.

In a Spanish-language rebuttal delivered on behalf of the Democratic Party, Padilla rebuked the president’s claim that he has brought about the “golden age of America,” accusing Trump of spurring economic uncertainty and plunging U.S. cities into violence.

President Trump gives his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington.

(J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

“The truth is that the State of our Union does not feel strong for everyone,” Padilla said. “Not when the costs of rent, food and electricity keep rising. Not when Republicans raise our medical costs to fund tax cuts for billionaires. And definitely not when federal agents — armed and masked — terrorize our communities by targeting people because of the color of their skin or for speaking Spanish — including immigrants with legal status and citizens.”

Padilla and Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, who delivered the Democratic rebuttal in English, countered Trump’s upbeat pronouncements by painting a starkly different picture of a country that is deeply divided months before critical midterm congressional elections.

Trump, whose approval ratings have slumped amid concerns about the economy and the harsh tactics deployed in his mass-deportation campaign, touted what he described as victories on foreign policy, including the U.S. ouster of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, and a slowing of inflation.

Padilla sought to counter those claims and rally support for Democrats, who have struggled to formulate an effective response to Trump as he has dominated national discourse in recent years.

Spanberger, speaking from Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, questioned whether Trump is working on behalf of Americans — or in his own self-interest.

Trump, she said, repeatedly has sought to deflect attention away from accusations that he is using the Oval Office to enrich himself and his family and the scandal involving Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and sex offender.

“We did not hear the truth from our president,” Spanberger said. “He lied, he scapegoated and he distracted.”

Spanberger, who beat her Republican opponent in the purple state of Virginia last fall by 15 points, said voters are struggling under Trump’s policies and beginning to turn on him. Political winds, she said, are shifting in favor of the Democrats.

Padilla focused heavily on the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in cities such as Los Angeles and Minneapolis, where agents this year killed two U.S. citizens who were protesting deportations.

“We see ICE agents using excessive force: entering homes without judicial warrants and shooting at cars with families still inside,” Padilla said. “We are living a nightmare that divides and destroys our communities.”

He was, he said, partly speaking from experience.

Last year, federal agents tackled Padilla to the floor and handcuffed him after he sought to question Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a news conference in Los Angeles.

Padilla referenced the incident in his speech and encouraged others to defy Trump.

“I am still here standing. Still fighting,” he said. “And I know you are still standing and still fighting too.”

“Trump does not want us to recognize our power,” he said.

Padilla also slipped in a reference to Puerto Rican pop star Bad Bunny, who was criticized by Trump for performing in Spanish during the halftime of the Super Bowl.

“As Bad Bunny reminded us a few weeks ago: ‘Together, we are America.’” Padilla said. “Together, we rise, because our faith is stronger than any disappointment or any obstacle — including Trump. And together, we will build the future our children deserve.”