Despite initially claiming she wanted to avoid politics on her new NBC daytime show, on Friday, during a fawning interview with the female cast members of Saturday Night Live, host Megyn Kelly fondly reminisced over comedian Kate McKinnon’s sorrowful opening of SNL after Hillary Clinton’s defeat in the 2016 election.
“The piano scene with you as Hillary, we now know it was seen by Hillary Clinton herself, who in her book acknowledged the Saturday after the election watching you playing her, playing that beautiful song, talking about seeing the tears in your eyes and saying she had them, too,” Kelly proclaimed. She asked McKinnon: “What was that like for you?”
McKinnon, who played Clinton throughout the campaign, gushed: “I mean, it really meant a lot because that meant a lot to me to be able to do that. And then to know that she watched it and was understanding what I was trying to say and felt it, too, was, like, wow, beautiful.”
Turning to McKinnon’s fellow cast member Cecily Strong, Kelly wondered: “Is it hard to play Melania Trump?” Strong described how she got into character to play the First Lady: “It’s a lot of makeup. I feel like I have to go in full drag to become that much of a woman.”
The entire first week of Kelly’s show has been focused on promoting NBC programming. On Monday she interviewed the cast of Will & Grace ahead of the premiere of its reunion season. On Tuesday she helped push the primetime drama This is Us. On Wednesday and Thursday she conducted jailhouse interviews with convicted killer Lyle Menendez ahead of a new Law & Order miniseries about the Menendez murders.
Friday’s biased segment was brought to viewers by Burlington, Lucky Charms, and Carmax.
Here is a transcript of the September 19 exchange:
9:39 AM ET
(...)
MEGYN KELLY: Kate, you came off if a huge Emmy win, congratulations.
KATE MCKINNON: Sure, sure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Oh, guys. It is shared with all of these women, all of my sisters, and all of our writers and all of the cast.
[CLIP OF MCKINNON PLAYING PIANO AS HILLARY CLINTON ON SNL]
KELLY: The piano scene with you as Hillary, we now know it was seen by Hillary Clinton herself, who in her book acknowledged the Saturday after the election watching you playing her, playing that beautiful song, talking about seeing the tears in your eyes and saying she had them, too. What was that like for you?
MCKINNON: I mean, it really meant a lot because that meant a lot to me to be able to do that. And then to know that she watched it and was understanding what I was trying to say and felt it, too, was, like, wow, beautiful.
CECILY STRONG [AS MELANIA TRUMP]: Donald loves women. You know, he’s always saying that woman is knockout, that woman is a ten, that woman used to be a ten, but hey, she’s still a seven. You know?
KELLY: Is it hard to play Melania Trump?
STRONG: It’s a lot of makeup. I feel like I have to go in full drag to become that much of a woman.
[LAUGHTER]
(...)
