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Biden Unites Democrats Cold Open – SNL

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Season 47 of “Saturday Night Live” opens with Joe Biden trying to referee his own party.

SNL kicked off its 47th season on October 2, 2021, with host Owen Wilson and musical guest Kacey Musgraves, but the real headline was the cold open. James Austin Johnson made his debut as President Joe Biden, stepping into the Oval Office to broker a truce between the moderate and progressive wings of the Democratic Party over a multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure and social spending package. The sketch turned the real-life standoff on Capitol Hill into a family intervention, with Biden playing exhausted mediator to lawmakers who wouldn’t budge an inch.

• James Austin Johnson made his high-profile SNL debut as President Biden, trying to project calm leadership while admitting his party was pulling itself apart.
• Aidy Bryant played West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin as a coal-defending holdout who lives on a houseboat and won’t sign off on the spending topline Democrats wanted.
• Melissa Villaseñor’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore the character’s now-famous Met Gala “Tax the Rich” dress while demanding full funding for progressive climate and social priorities, with Ego Nwodim’s Ilhan Omar backing her up.

Johnson’s Debut as Biden

Johnson had built a following online for his Biden impression before ever setting foot on the Studio 8H stage, and the premiere gave him the full introduction — a cold open built entirely around his ability to carry the president’s rambling, aviator-sunglasses cadence for several minutes straight. His Biden opens the sketch trying to sound presidential and optimistic about getting his agenda through Congress, then slowly deflates as he realizes the two factions he’s summoned to the Oval Office have no interest in meeting in the middle.

The bit works because it doesn’t pick a side so much as it exhausts itself watching both sides refuse to move. That’s consistent with how SNL has approached other real-time political flashpoints in its cold opens, from other “Message from the President”-style sketches to its running gallery of politicians behaving badly in front of a camera, a well the show has gone back to repeatedly — see also its takes on politicians saying the wrong thing on live TV.

Manchin and Sinema, the Two Immovable Objects

Aidy Bryant’s Joe Manchin is written as stubborn and unbothered, defending coal country and refusing to sign onto the spending levels the rest of the party wants, all while seemingly living out some kind of houseboat retirement fantasy in the middle of a legislative crisis. Cecily Strong’s Kyrsten Sinema is the stranger figure in the room — dressed in the senator’s real-life loud, colorful fashion, voting in contrarian fashion, and never actually explaining what she wants changed in the bill, just that she’s not there yet.

The two of them functioning as the sketch’s chief obstacles tracks with how the actual October 2021 standoff was being described in Washington: two Democratic senators with outsized leverage in a 50-50 Senate, both withholding support from the reconciliation package without fully spelling out their price.

AOC and Omar Push Back From the Left

On the other side of the room, Melissa Villaseñor’s Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shows up in the “Tax the Rich” gown she wore to the Met Gala, refusing to accept anything less than full funding for the climate and social programs progressives had been pushing. Ego Nwodim’s Ilhan Omar stands next to her offering no ground either, giving the sketch its second immovable bloc and leaving Johnson’s Biden squeezed from both directions with no actual deal to announce.

Johnson’s Biden keeps trying to sound like he’s closing the deal, and every lawmaker in the room keeps reminding him he isn’t.

No Resolution, Just the Cold Open Sign-Off

True to the real negotiations still playing out in Congress that week, the sketch doesn’t give anyone a win. The Democrats stay squabbling, Biden never gets his agreement, and the scene breaks the moment Johnson turns to the camera and delivers the show’s traditional line, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” alongside the rest of the ensemble.

It’s the kind of cold open SNL leans on when there’s no tidy punchline available in the news itself — just gridlock, restated as sketch comedy. Johnson stuck around as the show’s Biden for the rest of the season, and this premiere is the one that put him in the role.