From attacking former Biden aides for talking to CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson for their new book on Biden’s decline to gross Catholic priest jokes to mocking President Trump’s recent Middle East trip as the very definition of corruption while having the wrong props on stage, the season finale of NBC’s Saturday Night Live had it all, and not in a good way.
During the Weekend Update segment, the only joke about Tapper and Thompson’s Original Sin book saw Colin Jost completely miss the point, “According to a new tell-all book, Biden's inner circle revealed they were worried the president would need a wheelchair in his second term, especially after they were all done stabbing him in the back.”
Not only is such a sentiment not expressed whenever there is a Trump tell-all, but it ignores that the American people deserve to know if there was a cover-up.
Later, Jost and co-anchor Michael Che entered their end-of-season joke swap session, where they write jokes for each other, and then the other reads it on the air, having never seen it. For example, Che previously got himself in trouble for having Jost read a joke about his wife, Scarlett Johansson, and how she had a “roast beef” vagina after giving birth. As it happened, Johansson was this week’s host and joined Weekend Update this episode to get her revenge on Che.
However, Che was at it again. This time, he had Jost declare, “Some psychologists say adults can reduce stress by returning to a childhood hobby, which is why I returned to my favorite childhood hobby, topping off priests with my pretty little mouth.”
Earlier, during the cold open, James Austin Johnson and Emil Wakin did a skit as Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, respectively. Johnson portrayed the trip as self-evidently corrupt, “I , of course, am a big fan of everything that Saudi Arabia has to offer, from the oil to the money to end of list. But it's been a fantastic week in the Middle East. I also went to Qatar, the UAE. And much like God did during Passover, I skipped Israel, oh well. I bet you were happy about that, know, you like that, right?” 
After Wakim chimed in with “no comment,” Johnson continued, “No comment, you don’t want to say anything. Cancel culture. But I did make this trip—I didn't make this trip for myself, I want to make that clear. I did this for the American people. And in many ways, myself. My personal enrichment. I did that too. I did very well on this trip. Got a lot of cool stuff. The Qataris gave me a $400 million plane, can you believe that? And people said that was some sort of bribe. Not true. Not true. Because they haven't asked for anything in return.”
A succinct Wakim added, “Well, not yet.”
Because Wakim was playing MBS, the scene was supposed to be set in Saudi Arabia, but behind him was the flag of the United Arab Emirates, meaning SNL could not have been bothered to do basic research before trying to dunk on Trump.
Here is a transcript of the May 17 show:
NBC Saturday Night Live
5/17/2025
11:30 PM ET
JAMES AUSTIN JOHNSON [AS DONALD TRUMP]: I , of course, am a big fan of everything that Saudi Arabia has to offer, from the oil to the money to end of list. But it's been a fantastic week in the Middle East. I also went to Qatar, the UAE. And much like God did during Passover, I skipped Israel, oh well. I bet you were happy about that, know, you like that, right?
EMIL WAKIM [AS MOHAMMED BIN SALMAN]: No Comment.
JOHNSON: No comment, you don’t want to say anything. Cancel culture. But I did make this trip — I didn't make this trip for myself, I want to make that clear. I did this for the American people. And in many ways, myself. My personal enrichment. I did that too. I did very well on this trip. Got a lot of cool stuff. The Qataris gave me a $400 million plane, can you believe that? And people said that was some sort of bribe. Not true. Not true. Because they haven't asked for anything in return.
WAKIM: Well, not yet.
…
12:22 AM ET
COLIN JOST: According to a new tell-all book, Biden's inner circle revealed they were worried the president would need a wheelchair in his second term, especially after they were all done stabbing him in the back.
…
JOST: Some psychologists say adults can reduce stress by returning to a childhood hobby, which is why I returned to my favorite childhood hobby, topping off priests with my pretty little mouth.
