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Saturday Night Live’s Colin Jost and Michael Che have roasted Donald Trump’s remarks about immigrants eating cats and dogs in their first-ever live comedy special.
Colin Jost & Michael Che Present: New York After Dark premiered on Peacock on Thursday and saw the duo take a timey swipe at the former president after his bizarre outburst at Tuesday’s election debate with Kamala Harris.
In a claim, that was almost immediately debunked by ABC News moderator David Muir, Trump said: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating – they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
In the opening monologue, Jost joked that they wanted the live special to be “to be the second-funniest live event this week… after the debate. I don’t know about you guys, but I thought my guy did great.”
Seeing a potential flaw in his statement, Che joked: You gonna vote for Trump? Come on out of the closet and say you’re gonna vote for Trump.”
Undeterred, Jost added: “Nothing sounds more presidential than screaming, ‘They’re eating the cats and the dogs.’ I think that was Thomas Jefferson.”
He then added: “I actually do have to thank our first sponsor, ‘Cats & Dogs: A dog meat for migrants.’”
Jost is then handed a bag of dog food with ‘Cats & Dogs’ taped onto it.
A stunned Che quipped in response: “This motherf—er’s doing prop comedy. We got one opportunity to do live stand-up, you’re doing prop comedy on a debate reference… Jesus Christ.”
Trump was referring to a racist rumour spread by his running mate JD Vance that Haitian immigrants in the city of Springfield, Ohio had been abducting pets and eating them, “causing chaos” in the town. Springfield Police Division said it was aware of the “rumours” but has no information to support them.
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As a stunned Harris looked on in disbelief, Muir interjected and corrected the former president, adding: “ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there had been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”
Trump protested and said that he had seen stories on TV about pets being eaten adding: “People on television say, ‘My dog was taken and used for food,’ so maybe he said that and maybe that’s a good thing to say for a city manager.”
