SNL's Trump Jokes He's Renaming Monuments Because His Name Was Taken Off 'So Many Files'

For its final cold open of the year, Saturday Night Live had James Austin Johnson's Donald Trump get festive by addressing the nation—and the newly released Jeffrey Epstein files. The sketch arrived just after new documents related to Epstein were released on Friday, with some being quickly removed the following day.

Set against a backdrop of Christmas decorations, Johnson's Trump took to the podium, referencing his real-life primetime address from earlier in the week. He joked about renaming the Kennedy Center to include his name, quipping that the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial would be next.

The reason for putting his name on so many buildings? "Because we had to take it off of so many files," he said, in a direct reference to the heavily redacted documents from the Epstein case. "We had so many Trumps in there, we had to put them somewhere," the character added.

In a rambling monologue true to form, SNL's Trump also touched on his announcement of a Hunger Games-style "Patriot Games," Venezuela, and, for some reason, the Indigo Girls. The sketch wrapped up with a seasonal touch. "I'm doing my own version of Nativity now," Johnson's Trump declared. "Where kings from the Middle East bring gifts for me like gold and airplane and casino deal in Dubai."

PRISM Insight: This SNL sketch is more than just political satire; it's a real-time indicator of how sensitive social issues are processed into mainstream entertainment and public discourse. The immediacy with which the 'Epstein files' story was absorbed and turned into comedy material shows the accelerated cycle of the modern media landscape. It highlights the role of comedy as a primary lens through which a significant portion of the public interprets and discusses complex and contentious news, blurring the lines between information and entertainment to shape perception at incredible speed.