SNL Serves Satirical Couture with “The White POTUS”: A Political Getaway Dripping in Drama, Decadence, and Donkeys
Saturday Night Live has never shied away from blending bold political satire with pop culture pastiche, but on the night of April 12, the legendary Studio 8H gave us a fever dream we didn’t know we needed—“The White POTUS.” The sketch, which brilliantly riffs on The White Lotus’s iconic third season, reimagines HBO’s prestige series through a Beltway lens, sending the Trump dynasty and their orbit on a balmy, unhinged escape to a fictional Thai resort.
This isn’t just parody—it’s a designer-level send-up, styled with symbolism, satire, and sharp character play. Think of it as the political runway you didn’t know you needed.
Opening with a surreal credit sequence, SNL’s team swaps White Lotus’s ominous hand-painted monkeys and serpents for a symbolic, and savagely delightful, clash of red elephants and blue donkeys. Founding Fathers hang out of mouths like brooches on the lapel of history. It’s chaos, but couture.
Enter: Donald Trump, played by SNL’s reigning impersonation king James Austin Johnson, in a sedated daze, popping lorazepam like they’re after-dinner mints served atop a tiny McDonald’s burger patty. Melania (Chloe Fineman) offers up a Parker Posey-inflected vision that feels like the fever dream of an abandoned Vogue cover shoot—aloof, eccentric, and vaguely European.
The boys? Pure comedic gym-bro realness. Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, portrayed by Mikey Day and returning cast member Alex Moffat, blend the frat-boy fitness energy of Succession’s Tom and Greg with the gym-tan-laundry aesthetic of a disgraced Abercrombie ad. “B-T-dubs, where’s Ivanka?” one of them asks, casually blending Valley Girl cadence with national intrigue.
And where is Ivanka? Scarlett Johansson returns in platinum-blonde form to offer a spiritual spin—seated cross-legged at a serene Buddhist temple, contemplating whether she can truly surrender greed and material possessions. Her decision? Swift and chic: she grabs her Prada and runs.
But the real runway moment? Jon Hamm, radiating Kennedy cool and a dash of villainous charm, enters as RFK Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services. He brandishes a syringe of measles like it’s a high-stakes accessory on Project Runway: Pandemic Edition. Nearby, a woman—played by Sarah Sherman with the ethereal eccentricity of Aimee Lou Wood—gazes at a monkey with Vogue-level detachment, just before RFK Jr. storms off, knife in hand, to “kill it and eat it.” Ferality meets fashion.
And in the biggest casting surprise of the night? Lizzo, as the resort’s exhausted spa manager à la Belinda (Natasha Rothwell’s breakout role), serving us capitalism fatigue chic. “There was $20 million in my account. Now it’s $5 million,” she sighs, eyes wide, wrists heavy with invisible Cartier.
Let’s not forget the fashion-forward frenemy trio: Heidi Gardner as South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, Ashley Padilla as Pam Bondi, and Marcello Hernández’s Marco Rubio, delivering shade sharper than a Balenciaga shoulder pad.
And then there’s Beck Bennett’s shirtless Putin—yes, he’s back—and Kenan Thompson’s inexplicable Tiger Woods cameo. Honestly, it’s giving surrealism, it’s giving satire, it’s giving White Lotus: Mar-a-Lago Edition.
The White POTUS is more than just a sketch. It’s an absurdist, hyper-satirical look at American power, painted in bold pastels and wrapped in the drama of privilege, exile, and political parody. The wardrobe may be invisible, but the commentary is haute.
