The four-time host took a break from punching down to deliver a timely message.
No matter how much has changed over the past decade, one thing remains true: Saturday Night Live never brings in Dave Chappelle for a filler episode. The comedian has now hosted the show four times in just more than eight years, each stint coming on the heels of a pivotal election. Last night, in the SNL installment preceding President-Elect Donald Trump’s second inauguration on Monday, Chappelle opened his monologue by detailing his attempts to turn down the daunting gig this time around. The SNL creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels had apparently tried persuading Chappelle to again take the stage following the 2024 presidential election; Chappelle spent the several weeks prior to and after Trump’s reelection rejecting the offer. He eventually relented, he said, so that “I could just get rid of all these old Trump jokes and start fresh.”
That lead-in suggested that Chappelle might spend the rest of his set revisiting familiar comedic territory. But where Chappelle has previously doubled down on his right to offend, he instead used the moment to lay the groundwork for sharp, wide-ranging commentary. “The moment I said yes, L.A. burst into flames,” he quipped, following up with the kind of posturing that audiences have come to expect from him: He acknowledged that it’s too soon to laugh about the wildfires still ravaging Southern California, then threw the camera a mischievous wink. The veteran comic knows where the line is, he seemed to be saying, and revels in crossing it simply because he can. In a marked contrast to his earlier SNL appearances, though—including his one in 2022, for which he received criticism for perceived anti-Semitic remarks—the comedian seemed mellower. And not only did Chappelle demonstrate an interest in unity, but he also offered viewers an unexpected and sincere-sounding plea for compassion.
Chappelle wrapped his nearly 20-minute act with a direct appeal to the divided country and its incoming president. He ended with a timely anecdote about connecting with others amid deeply entrenched conflicts. Chappelle said that in the mid-aughts, after walking away from his eponymous hit show, he spent some time soul-searching in the Middle East. The comedian recalled that the late former President Jimmy Carter flew to Israel during that period; Carter was there to promote his 2006 book, Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid. Chappelle described Carter’s insistence on then going “to the Palestinian territory” despite the Israeli government saying it would be too dangerous. “I will never forget the images of a former American president walking with little to no security while thousands of Palestinians were cheering him on, and when I saw that picture, it brought tears to my eyes,” he said.
He continued:
The presidency is no place for petty people, so Donald Trump—I know you watch the show—man, remember, whether people voted for you or not, they’re all counting on you, whether they like you or not. They’re all counting on you. The whole world is counting on you. And I mean this when I say this: Good luck. Please, do better next time. Please, all of us, do better next time. Do not forget your humanity. And please, have empathy for displaced people, whether they’re in the Palisades or Palestine.
Last night’s call to presidential action was a stark departure from Chappelle’s earlier comments about Trump during the comic’s SNL debut, in an awkward, unsettling episode following Hillary Clinton’s defeat in November 2016. Chappelle stole the show with a monologue (and a Chris Rock–assisted skit) that conveyed his lack of surprise at Trump’s ascendancy. But Chappelle ended on a more serious note. He waxed poetic about the hopefulness he felt after seeing a sea of Black faces at a party held in the Obama White House: “So, in that spirit, I’m wishing Donald Trump luck,” he said. “And I’m going to give him a chance, and we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one too.” A few months later, the comic reportedly said he regretted being “the first guy on TV to say, ‘Give Trump a chance.’”
Chappelle deployed his trademark barbed humor to further thoughtful ends last night—even when he wasn’t talking about Trump. After running through a list of famous friends who lost their homes in the L.A. fires, the comic mocked the replies he’d seen on videos of the blazes. “Everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, it serves these celebrities right. I hope their houses burned down,’” he said. “You see that? That right there—that’s why I hate poor people.” Chappelle then took a drag from his cigarette, waited for the audience to finish laughing, and got to the real punch line: “’Cause they can’t see past their own pain.” The comic went on to emphasize the country’s glaring economic inequality while expressing concern for people outside his own wealthy milieu. He spoke about the working-class families that found out the week of the fires that their fire-insurance coverage had been revoked; when he seemingly misspoke by saying “health insurance,” Chappelle suggested that Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, could help either way. It was a grim joke, one that telegraphed his understanding that many Americans feel exploited by both industries—and reminded viewers that he can still bring people’s experiences into his comedy.
Of course, Chappelle was still himself, throwing in a handful of musings about how scary it is to be famous right now and making a cringe-worthy comparison between West Hollywood and Sodom. A later sketch also saw him revisiting some of Chappelle’s Show’s most memorable (and outrageous) characters. But the stand-up never took the lazy, condescending tack that’s made him divisive among critics in recent years. (Dave Chappelle: The Dreamer, which premiered on Netflix last month, kicks off with a lengthy segment that rehashes his stalest material.) Chappelle instead drew on his experiences of living in the Midwest—something he also did, to compelling effect, when he hosted SNL after the 2020 presidential election. From this personal angle, he sought to elucidate the similarities between demographics that look wildly different at first glance. It didn’t always work perfectly, then or now, but it felt refreshingly human.
