The “Saturday Night Live” cold open this week tackled concerns over president Joe Biden’s age, specifically the number of those in Biden’s circle who continually attest that he’s sharp “behind closed doors.”
The sketch was framed as a CNN news program hosted by Dana Bash, played by Heidi Gardner. California governor Gavin Newsom was first up, played by Michael Longfellow. He attested that Biden is so sharp he uses Apple Vision Pro: “The software might be in Beta but the man, he’s an Alpha.”
When Gardner’s Bash brought up the Sleepy Joe moniker, Newsom shot back: “Well he has to sleep, Dana!”
And Newsom also had a reference to the 1990 film “Awakenings” in his back pocket: “The other day he was taking a nap and I whipped a baseball at him and he was like De Niro in ‘Awakenings.’”
Bash then went to White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, played by Ego Nwodim. “Pleasure to be with you to talk about the most vigorous man I’ve ever known, Joe Biden,” she said as she introduced herself.
She also cracked wise about the fact that Biden was born before Roe v. Wade. “Look, Joe Biden was 30 years old before Roe v. Wade was instated, so you know he was smashing,” she said to one of the laughs out of the audience during this particularly lukewarm cold open.
Finally, to really drill down the outlandishness of the stories about Biden’s vigor, Bash threw to Golden State Warriors player Draymond Green, played by Devon Walker.
“Are we talking about Joe Biden? Because he got that dog in him!,” he opened. As Bash pushed back on the notion of Biden hanging out with Green, the NBA star said, “Did you know he dunked on me?”
The sketch ended with an ill-fated attempt to FaceTime Biden, as Mikey Day had a brief cameo as the president before a joke about him not being able to find the right button on his phone.
Watch the cold open in the video above..