Mikey Madison texts with government officials in ‘SNL’ cold open spoof of Signal group chat leak
(From left) Ego Nwodim
By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN
(CNN) — Oscar-winner Mikey Madison appeared during the cold open of the latest episode “Saturday Night Live,” which put a spin on the White House’s Signal group texting scandal.
Madison – the episode’s host – along with Sarah Sherman and Ego Nwodim played high school students texting each other some normal teenage gossip… until Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, played by Andrew Dismukes, randomly popped into the chat to update the chain about a pending military plan.
“FYI: Green light on Yemen right now,” Dismukes as Hegseth texted, followed by a series of emojis.
Last week, President Donald Trump’s administration came under fire after The Atlantic reported that several of the president’s security officials and department leaders, including Vice President JD Vance, had been communicating about forthcoming strikes on Yemen on Signal, an encrypted chat app in a thread that mistakenly included the publication’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg.
At one point in the sketch, Bowen Yang as Vance popped into the chat from Greenland, where he admitted “nobody knows why I’m here, especially me.”
Marcello Hernandez, playing Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also chimed in to the chat, going on about releasing the “real JFK files.”
“I think you accidentally added us to a government chat,” Sherman’s high schooler character said.
Bowen as Vance said that “it could be worse, you could add the editor of the Atlantic again.”
“You did,” replied Mikey Day, playing Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg.
The sketch ended with Hernandez’s Rubio attempting to collect the three teenage girls’ identification information to send to ICE.
The episode marked Madison’s “SNL” debut, with Morgan Wallen serving as the musical guest. “SNL” airs on NBC at 11:30 p.m. ET/8:30 p.m. PT.
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CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis, Zachary Cohen, Kevin Liptak, Alayna Treene and Jeff Zeleny contributed to this report.
