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By Aliss Higham
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Saturday Night Live kicked off this week's show with a cold open parodying Attorney General Pam Bondi's appearance in front of a Senate committee this week.
Comedian, actor and former SNL cast member Amy Poehler took on the role of Bondi as she testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, while her longtime collaborator and friend Tina Fey played Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Newsweek has contacted the Justice Department via the contact form on its website for comment.
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Bondi's Senate Hearing
The confrontations at the annual Senate Judiciary Committee hearing follow months of Democratic claims that President Donald Trump has undermined the Justice Department’s independence by using it to pursue politically motivated charges.
Federal prosecutors have charged former FBI Director James Comey, while a reported federal probe into Tom Homan, the so-called “border czar,” was dropped after Trump assumed office. Comey has pleaded not guilty to charges of making false statements to Congress and obstruction of justice.
At the same time, the president has continued sending National Guard troops to Democratic-led areas for missions framed as combating crime and protecting immigration officers, despite objections from local officials.
During the five-hour hearing, Bondi avoided discussing numerous actions by the administration during questioning from Democrats. When pressed, she launched personal attacks on several senators or cited the ongoing government shutdown.
'SNL' Sketch
This week’s cold open lampooned Bondi’s tense appearance before the committee. Poehler portrayed Bondi responding to questions from Democratic senators with a series of biting remarks she described as “roast-style burns I have on this piece of paper.”
Senators then fired questions at Poehler, and she delivered a snarky reply to each. When asked to spell her name, she said Bondi is spelled with an "i" because "I ain't gonna answer any of your questions."
After another question, Poehler added, "Before I don't answer, I'd like to insult you personally."
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Poehler's Bondi is also asked if Trump directed her to indict Comey.
“I’m not going to discuss my private conversations with the president,” Poehler as Bondi said. “I’m not telling you who fell asleep in the middle of a sentence, or who kept calling me Ivanka while patting his lap.”
Poehler then made way for Noem, played by Fey, who joined in the jabs, telling one senator: “That makes me laugh more than the end of ‘Old Yeller.’”
When reminded that a dog gets shot at the end of the 1957 film about a boy and a stray dog in post-Civil War Texas, she replied: “Dogs don’t just get shot. Heroes shoot them," in reference to her deceased dog Cricket. In 2024, Noem admitted to killing Cricket with a gun due to him being "untrainable" in her book No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward.
The SNL open culminated in a sharp call-and-response between her and Poehler that parodied ICE recruitment ads. “Do you take supplements that you bought at a gas station?” Noem asked. “Buckle up and slap on some Oakleys big boys, and welcome to ICE!”
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