No, that’s not a picture of Ted Cruz resting right above these here words. That’s Saturday Night Live cast member Aidy Bryant in character as the Republican senator from Texas, complete with his signature falsies and threaded eyebrows.
Bryant stepped into the noted cuck porn enthusiast’s probably low-heeled, definitely not Nike-branded footwear last night in the SNL cold open, which parodied Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony before Congress on Tuesday. In the sketch, a group of senators grill Haugen, played here by Heidi Gardner, about the platform’s capacity for spreading misinformation as well as its overall culpability for allegedly harming its users. At least...they try to. The various senators aren’t exactly the most technologically inclined, so their respective lines of questioning generally tend towards the “How do I get people to stop telling me I suck online?” and the “What is a meme?” (pronounced here: muh-mé) variety.
“I was particularly drawn to your test about bullying online how some teenagers and even some adult men are bullied almost constantly,” Bryant’s Cruz tells Gardner’s Haugen. “So, I’m wondering: How do you turn off that feature where everyone comments on all your posts and says ‘You’re bad’ and they hate you?”
He’s also very “concerned” about “toxic extremist groups” with “hateful names like ‘Ted Cruz Sucks,’” which he says should be flagged as misinformation. Debatable! Watch the sketch below.
My personal favorite sketch of the night featured host Kim Kardashian West, who netted way higher ratings than the season premiere’s all-time low, per Deadline, in character as her sister, Kourtney, hosting a Judge Judy-style daytime court show called The People’s Kourt. (With an honorable mention to the one where Kim and Aidy pull a Freaky Friday on each other.)
Standout moments include Kris Jenner, as herself, suing Kylie for not having her baby fast enough (“We have a whole marketing PR plan, and she’s costing us money.”) as well as Kendall for producing “absolutely no drama.” (“I’m a Jenner, not a Kardashian.” “And that’s something you need to work on, honey.”) Oh! And the part where Machine Gun Kelly tells Megan Fox, “I wish I could vape you.”
Watch it below.