Saturday Night Live turned its Halloween cold open on Saturday (Oct. 31) into a send-up of Nicki Minaj’s support for President Donald Trump, a week after the rapper joined him on the campaign trail.
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Cast member Saidah Belo-Osagie played Minaj, bursting into the sketch near its end as James Austin Johnson’s Trump praised her loyalty to his movement. “Trump’s out here killing it,” Belo-Osagie’s Minaj declared, “and by it, I mean my career.” The sketch also cast her as Trump’s next choice for White House press secretary.
The parody drew directly on Minaj’s appearance at Trump’s Oct. 25 rally in Port Huron, Michigan, where she traveled with him on Air Force One and backed Republican candidates Mike Rogers and John James ahead of Tuesday’s (Nov. 3) midterm elections. During the rally, Trump invited Minaj to stand before the crowd and commented on her appearance, a moment the sketch played on with Johnson’s Trump making a string of jokes about the subject.
The press secretary gag also had a real-world source. A Trump staffer floated Minaj for the role during the Air Force One trip, and Trump later told The Benny Show it was “a good idea,” adding, “I’m gonna think about that.” Minaj has also said she is “not going anywhere” after Trump called her his “favorite.”
The cold open was framed as a ride through a budget Halloween haunted attraction, with Grace Reiter and Jeremy Culhane as a couple on a date and Kenan Thompson as a Grim Reaper guide. Tom Hanks then appeared as David S. Pumpkins, the oddball character he introduced on the show in 2016, backed by his dancing skeleton sidekicks Mikey Day and former cast member Bobby Moynihan, in what the sketch itself called the character’s third outing.
Before the bit could get going, Johnson’s Trump froze the scene and cut it short. “I’ll save you four minutes: he keeps popping up and confusing people on the ride. The end,” he told the audience, before comparing himself to Pumpkins: “We both appeared in 2016, we’re both very loud, very orange.” He went on to complain about Republican polling ahead of the midterms before Belo-Osagie’s Minaj made her entrance.
Minaj has not publicly addressed the sketch.
The rapper remains one of the most successful acts in Billboard chart history. In 2018, she became the first woman to log 100 entries on the Billboard Hot 100, and she holds the most Hot 100 top 10s among female rappers. In 2020, she and Doja Cat became the first female rap duo to top the Hot 100, with the remix of “Say So.”
Obsession star Inde Navarrette hosted the episode, her first time in the role. Gracie Abrams was the musical guest, her second SNL appearance after her December 2024 debut. She arrived fresh off the release of her new single “Here You Come, There You Go” on Oct. 29, and ahead of her Look at My Life arena tour, which launches Dec. 2 in Denver in support of her third album, Daughter From Hell.
SNL airs live on Saturday (Oct. 31), with a start time of 11:30 p.m. ET/PT.
