Trump Dominates SNL's Most-Viewed Season 51 Sketches (So Far)

Just about halfway through its 51st season, Saturday Night Live’s YouTube leaderboard tells a familiar story: Trump, Trump, and more Trump.

More than half of Saturday Night Live’s ten most-viewed sketches this season take on Trump and his administration, and all but one have featured James Austin Johnson’s impression of Donald Trump.

To date, the most popular Season 51 sketch on YouTube is the show’s first of the season—“Pete Hegseth Cold Open,” which starred Colin Jost in a rare sketch appearance. The sketch, which lampooned a speech Trump’s Secretary of War gave to military officials, has racked up over 9.37 million views to date.

In the second and third spots are the few political cold opens this year that opted to bring in outside players for impressions. “NYC Mayoral Debate Cold Open,” which currently sits at 7.14 million views, featured Ramy Youssef as Zohran Mamdani (alongside Shane Gillis as Curtis Sliwa and host Miles Teller as Andrew Cuomo). Just behind that, with 7.08 million views, is “Pam Bondi Hearing Cold Open,” which starred host Amy Poehler as Pam Bondi and surprise guest Tina Fey as Kristi Noem.

Rounding out the top ten are SNL’s takes on Hegseth’s Pentagon presser, a White House briefing on the Epstein files, and the Oval Office speech on pharmaceuticals in which an attendee collapsed. Johnson’s impression of Trump featured in all of the political sketches except the one led by Poehler & Fey.

While SNL has devoted its cold open to Trump in seven of nine episodes this season, two other sketches featuring the president that played mid-show are also among this season’s top 20. “White House Makeover,” which imagined Trump’s ballroom construction as an episode of Property Brothers, is the show’s seventh most popular sketch on YouTube, with over 5.31 million views.

And “Boys Podcast,” from Sabrina Carpenter’s double-duty episode, ranks as the 15th most popular sketch from Season 51 so far, with 3.39 million views.

Of the season’s five most-viewed clips, only one is a non-political sketch—though there were other cultural forces at play in its success. Benefitting from the massive popularity of Netflix’s animated musical movie KPop Demon Hunters, the sketch of the same name is Season 51’s fourth most-viewed sketch so far. Driven by a surprise appearance (and performance) from the group behind the pop culture phenomenon, HUNTR/X, the sketch has surpassed 7 million views.

Bad Bunny’s “Parent Teacher Conference” (4.88 million views) and Melissa McCarthy’s “UPS Delivery Driver” (4.80 million views) round out the top ten.

As far as hosts go, season-opener Bad Bunny is currently at the top of the heap, with three of his sketches cracking the top 20. (The Pete Hegseth cold open that leads the season in views also came from his episode, though Bad Bunny did not appear in it.) Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter both have two sketches of their own in the top 20, and given the recency, it’s possible that more of Grande’s sketches could break through in the coming weeks.

Also within Season 51’s top 20 are two clips of Weekend Update jokes: one featuring riffs on Trump’s inclusion in the Epstein emails and the end of the government shutdown (3.91 million views), and another about the Oval Office collapse and Zohran Mamdani’s win (3.68 million views).

Trump’s omnipresence in SNL’s most popular videos should come as no surprise. The president has continued to hold outsized influence over all of late-night television this year, with nearly all of the 20 most-viewed clips across the five major nightly shows (The Tonight Show, Late Night, The Late Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, and The Daily Show) focusing on the actions of Trump and his administration.

The full list of this season’s 20 most-viewed sketches so far follows below: