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When Dave Chappelle hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 2016, four days after the presidential election, he ended his monologue with a thought about President-elect Donald J. Trump. “I’m wishing Donald Trump luck,” Chappelle said at the time. “And I’m going to give him a chance, and we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one too.”
Chappelle came back to host “S.N.L.” the weekend after the 2020 presidential election and midterm vote of 2022, but although he was invited to the same slot in 2024, he declined. In a long and lively monologue on this weekend’s broadcast, he explained why.
Recounting a conversation with Lorne Michaels, the “S.N.L.” creator and executive producer, Chappelle said, “I was like, ‘Nah, man, I’m cool,’” adding: “Things are going good. I finished my Netflix deal. I got all this money and stuff.” But Michaels persisted, so to get off the phone, Chappelle said, he offered a compromise: “I said, ‘Just save the date closest to Jan. 6.’”
He talked about how the fires had affected his friends and colleagues like the actors Cary Elwes and Dennis Quaid and the rapper Madlib. He said that reading callous online comments from people wishing that celebrities’ houses would burn down upset him. “You see that?” Chappelle said. “That right there? That’s why I hate poor people. Because they can’t see past their own pain.”
He called the wildfires “the most expensive natural disaster that’s ever happened in United States history,” probably because “people in L.A. have nice stuff.”
He said that Luigi Mangione, who was charged with murder in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive in Manhattan, “did almost plan like the perfect crime” and that his only mistake was forgetting “to shave his eyebrows.”
The comedian noted that other countries were helping the United States to put out the Southern California fires. “Canada sent planes that helped us out,” Chappelle said. “Mexico sent firefighters. And Trump was like, ‘make sure they leave when they finish.’”
Chappelle revisited a false claim the president-elect made during the campaign, that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating their neighbors’ pets. Chappelle, who lives in Ohio, explained that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield had arrived in this country legally and “saved a lot of companies because they did jobs that the whites weren’t doing.”
“The presidency is no place for petty people,” he concluded. “Donald Trump, I know you watch the show. Man, remember, whether people voted for you or not, they’re all counting on you. Whether they like you or not, they’re all counting on you. The whole world is counting on you. I mean this when I say this: Good luck. Please, do better next time. Please, all of us, do better next time. Do not forget your humanity and please have empathy for displaced people, whether they’re in the Palisades or Palestine.”
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