Nov.8
Political News, Now.
Donald Trump Hosts ‘Saturday Night Live’ Amid Protests
Donald J. Trump, making his first appearance on “Saturday Night Live” as a presidential candidate, was satirized by two well-coiffed doppelgängers, who attempted (admirably) to outboast him in matching red ties.
“Now that I’m here, this is actually the best monologue in ‘SNL’ history,” one of them declared.
Mr. Trump was loudly and provocatively heckled by the actor Larry David, who repeatedly called him a “racist” from off stage.
And he was lavished with praise by a fictional White House aide, who told him that “everyone loves the new laws you tweeted.”
Mr. Trump, a man famed for his self-aggrandizing ways, seemed to relish the chance to show that he could take a joke — a point that he made explicitly in his opening monologue as host on the NBC show.
But it was a stilted and sometimes unfunny performance, suggesting Mr. Trump is most at ease when hosting his own, seemingly never-ending TV show, rather than appearing as a guest host on somebody else’s.
Mr. Trump, who previously guest hosted in 2004, appeared in a variety of skits, amid protests from Latino activists who had demanded that the network bar him from the show because of his controversial remarks about Mexican immigrants and his stated position that he would deport millions of undocumented residents.
Outside the show’s studio in Midtown Manhattan, at least 200 demonstrators marched with signs in English and Spanish. Carrying placards declaring “We are the people” and “Shut it down” to the beat of drums, they also brandished large papier-mâché masks depicting Mr. Trump and held aloft such other messages as “Trump: La Cara del Racismo” and “SNL: This is how you fix your diversity problem?”
“Saturday Night Live” seemed sensitive to the critique: Mr. David’s prominent, defiant cameo during the opening skit seemed designed to both acknowledge and answer the protesters.
But over all, Mr. Trump was his usual, colorful and playful self: When Mr. David explained that he had heard he would be paid $5,000 to shout that Mr. Trump was a racist, Mr. Trump said he understood.
“As a businessman,” he said, “I can respect that.”
Before the broadcast, the organization DeportRacism.com, a political action committee, promised on its website to pay $5,000 to anyone on the set of the show or in the studio audience who yelled out “deport racism” or “Trump is a racist” during the live show. (The group said it would divide that sum if multiple people shouted; it does not appear that anyone other than Mr. David did.)
The broadcast was a family affair. Mr. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, played herself during a sketch inside a fake Oval Office, informing her father of plans to cover the Washington Monument in casino-style gold-colored glass.
The businessman trotted out plenty of bravado. After reciting a list of his attributes — rich, funny, handsome — he answered the question on everyone’s mind:
“So why are you hosting ‘SNL’? Why? And the answer is I really have nothing better to do.”
As the show dragged on, that seemed apparent. Mr. Trump’s sketches seemed to become increasingly less compelling. In one, he appeared as a profoundly unwelcome guest — a musician crashing a family dinner and offering a wide, somewhat menacing grin as he thrust a microphone into the hand of the man at the head of the table.
Mr. Trump also appeared aware of the perils of live sketch comedy. Referring to episodes of “Saturday Night Live” past, he said: “This show has been a disaster for me.”
The show concluded with a tawdry touch. Two women said to be former prostitutes stood on the stage, promoting “clown-themed political pornos.”
Mr. Trump appeared at the end of the skit, vowing that he did not in any way endorse the message.
Then he turned knowingly to one of the women.
“Didn’t you used to be a brunette?”
“Yeah,” she replied.
“That’s what I thought,” Mr. Trump said.
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Ben Carson Defends His Biography as Donald Trump Pounces
Ben Carson emphatically defended himself on Sunday against mounting claims that he has embellished his biography as his Republican rival, Donald J. Trump, sought to cast new doubt on the honesty of the retired neurosurgeon.
In a series of interviews on Sunday morning news shows, Mr. Carson intensified his critique of the media, saying he was under such intense scrutiny because of the threat he poses to “the secular progressive movement in this country.”
In an interview with NBC News, Mr. Carson said he would not make his brother available to discuss the violent episodes of his youth, which he has described in his books. So far, nobody else has verified the dramatic and vividly recalled tales of Mr. Carson attempting to stab his friend and trying to strike his mother with a hammer.
“My brother’s not interested in talking to the media,” Mr. Carson said. “And a number of other people aren’t either, that I’ve talked to.”
In a sign of how prominent his once-sleepy campaign has become Mr. Carson told CBS’s “Face the Nation,” that he now has protection from the secret service, which was prompted, he said, by threats to his safety.
“The way it works, you don’t get secret service protection unless there are credible threats,” Mr. Carson said.
Mr. Trump seemed to relish the chance to discuss the disputed anecdotes from Mr. Carson’s life — and to suggest that they might not be untrue. Appearing, by phone, on “Face The Nation,” NBC’s “Meet the Press” and CNN’s “State of the Union,” Mr. Trump mischievously said he wished Mr. Carson well, and then picked apart his stories.
Referring to the attempted stabbing, which Mr. Carson has said was blocked by his friend’s belt buckle, Mr. Trump seemed incredulous.
“When you say that you stabbed someone and were saved by a belt buckle,” Trump said. “And that’s pretty unlikely cause a belt buckle will turn. You know, a belt buckle is not going to stop a knife.”
Mr. Trump took a few liberties. Mr. Carson has written about a “pathological temper” in his childhood. Mr. Trump invoked the word repeatedly on Sunday, saying that Mr. Carson has a “pathological disease” and suggesting it would be difficult for him to recover.
“You say in a book you have pathological disease — pathological disease is not cured,” Mr. Trump told CBS.
Mr. Trump ended with a note of sympathy for Mr. Carson that seemed to fall just short of sincere.
“I just don’t know what to think,” he said. “I hope it works out for him.”
Asked by NBC, after an intense week of scrutiny, if he was having fun on the campaign trail, Mr. Carson seemed weary.
“Would I have preferred to be doing something else? Certainly,” he said. “But it is important to me. And when I think about the sacrifices that were made by those who preceded us in order that we might have the freedom that we have now, it’s the very least that I can do.”
Hillary Clinton Proposes More Research Into Medicinal Marijuana
Hillary Rodham Clinton on Saturday proposed reclassifying marijuana to make it a less dangerous substance and to encourage more research into its medicinal benefits.
At a town hall in Orangeburg, S.C., Mrs. Clinton said marijuana, currently classified in the most dangerous category (or “Schedule I”) of the Controlled Substances Act, should be changed in its federal classification to “Schedule II” so that it can be experimented with and implemented for medical use.
“I do support the use of medical marijuana,” she said in response to a question about the drug at the town hall, hosted by the journalist Roland Martin and held at Claflin University, a historically black school.
“I think even there we need to do a lot more research so that we know exactly how we’re going to help people for whom medical marijuana provides relief,” she continued.
The comments come as Mrs. Clinton has proposed sweeping changes to the criminal justice system, increased gun control measures and a rethinking of mandatory minimum sentences for low-level drug offenders.
“We have got to stop imprisoning people who use marijuana,” Mrs. Clinton said at the first Democratic debate in Las Vegas last month.
Senator Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, has also proposed a federal reclassification of marijuana for medicinal use.
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