Saturday Night Live opened its 52nd season by reuniting James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump with Ramy Youssef’s Zohran Mamdani—but Ashley Padilla nearly walked away with the cold open as Trump aide Natalie Harp.
The sketch began with Mamdani responding to the nor’easter bearing down on New York City when an aide informed him that someone had braved the storm to see him.
“Your best friend,” she said, cueing Trump’s entrance.
“Mr. President. You’re here. Again,” Mamdani sighed.
“Of course I am. I missed my day-one Zohran Mamdani,” Trump replied. “For some reason no one can figure out, I really, really like you.”
Johnson’s Trump spent much of the sketch fawning over Mamdani, comparing their relationship to “one of those unlikely animal friendships” between a tiger and a baby goat.
“When I see stuff like that, I want to text it to you and say, ‘This could be us, but you playing,’” he said.
But the sketch shifted gears when Trump learned that he, too, had a visitor.
“What reckless lunatic would travel to see me in this kind of weather?” he asked.
“It’s your assistant, Natalie Harp.”
Enter Padilla.
“Mr. President, hi!” she exclaimed.
When Trump told her he didn’t realize she was in New York, Harp explained, “Oh. I wasn’t. I ran here from D.C. ‘Weapons’ style.”
Padilla then broke into Beyoncé’s “Baby Boy” while staring adoringly at Trump, prompting Johnson to tell Mamdani, “She’s like the girl from Obsession but blond.”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” Padilla replied with an enormous grin. “I’m totally normal. I’m totally normal.”
Then, after politely introducing herself to Mamdani, Padilla-as-Harp suddenly leaned in.
“If you hurt him? I will end you.”
The sketch ended with Trump begging Mamdani to let him remain in New York rather than return to Washington. Mamdani agreed on one condition: $21 billion for a housing project in Queens.
“Are you out of your mind?” Trump asked.
“What if I follow you back on Instagram?”
“It’s a done deal.”
The duo then delivered Season 52’s first “Live from New York, it’s Saturday night!”
It was the second time this week Harp has crashed a late-night institution. On Thursday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Kimmel introduced his own clingy “assistant, Natalie,” a Harp sendup played by his wife, executive producer and co-head writer Molly McNearney. That version hovered at Kimmel’s side, offered to handle his posts, sat at his feet, and protested that she couldn’t “hear,” “smell,” or “wipe” him from backstage.
Watch this week’s full SNL cold open at the top of this post.
