Trump tried to enlist Justice Department to stop ‘SNL’ from satirizing him: report
Nancy Dillon
Former President Donald Trump reportedly tried to enlist the Department of Justice and Federal Communications Commission in early 2019 to investigate “Saturday Night Live” and other late-night comedy shows that satirized him.
The Daily Beast reported one unidentified source involved in the discussion said that when Trump was told the DOJ doesn’t handle such matters, he allegedly asked: “Can something else be done about it?”
“I’ll look into it,” the source reportedly replied, telling the news outlet, however, that authorities never “looked into it.”
(L)Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump during the "Impeachment Fantasy" Cold Open on Saturday, February 1, 2020. (R) residential candidate Donald Trump gestures after Carly Fiorina says she met with Russian President Putin at a one on one meeting, during the Republican Presidential Debate sponsored by Fox Business and the Wall Street Journal at the Milwaukee Theatre November 10, 2015 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
(L)Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump during the "Impeachment Fantasy" Cold Open on Saturday, February 1, 2020. (R) residential candidate Donald Trump gestures after Carly Fiorina says she met with Russian President Putin at a one on one meeting, during the Republican Presidential Debate sponsored by Fox Business and the Wall Street Journal at the Milwaukee Theatre November 10, 2015 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Another unnamed source told the news outlet that the president’s inquires about how he might be able to stop “SNL” and other late-night hosts weren’t taken seriously.
“It was more annoying than alarming, to be honest with you,” that source said.
Although Fred Armisen doesn't sound much like Obama, he's got the look and the inflection down pat. In one of his funniest bits, Armisen tries to address the American people about the financial crisis, but keeps getting side-tracked when he remembers how cool his celebrity-studded inauguration was.
After four score and seven weeks or so of speculation since Daniel Day Lewis landed the title role in 'Lincoln,' DreamWorks presented the first image of the actor as the 16th President. In a portrait shot, the 55-year-old actor - seen in profile in a gray beard and a presidential brown suit - seems a dead ringer for Abraham Lincoln.
Netflix jumped into the content creation game with its first original series, political drama "House of Cards." Starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, it also features Michael Gill as POTUS Garrett Walker. He may be President, but he's often kept in the dark.
You think dating is hard enough for ordinary people? Imagine how difficult is must be when you're the leader of the free world. Determined not to be the only president since James Buchanan to end his presidency without marrying, Shepherd takes a shine to a young lobbyist played by Annette Bening. The script, written by 'The Social Network' scribe Aaron Sorkin, was in many ways a dry run for the writer's later series, 'The West Wing.'
We're not sure whether to classify this as fictional or historical: that's because John Travolta's portrayal of a charismatic, philandering Southern politician so closely follows the life of Bill Clinton that 'Primary Colors' is pretty much a biopic of the slippery president.
Before "Old School," "Anchorman" and "Talledega Nights," Will Ferrell was best known for his bumbling Bush portrayal on SNL. Although Ferrell quit SNL in 2002, he reprised the role many times over the past ten years to give advice to current politicians and pundits. During the 2008 election, he assured Tiny Fey's Sarah Palin by saying, "The president can do NOTHING without the approval of the vice president." Darrell Hammond took a spin as Vice President Al Gore on "SNL."
The polar opposite of Ferrell's Bush, Josh Brolin's performance is an intense take on the troubled 43rd president. Oliver Stone films should always be taken with a grain of salt, but truth or no truth, 'W' perfectly captures the tone of America in the 2000s.
Phil Hartman played Bill Clinton for a good couple of years before he left the show and Darrell Hammond took over. And although Hammond was solid, Hartman provided the definitive Clinton spoof in a hilarious sketch that involved the president stopping by a McDonalds on a jog and then pretty much eating everything in sight.
Carvey was such an ace impersonator that when 'SNL' lampooned the 1992 presidential debate, Carvey played both George H.W. Bush and Ross Perot.
"Get off my plane!" In what was perhaps his last truly awesome role Harrison Ford plays President James Marshall, a man who isn't content unless he's throwing terrorists out of moving aircrafts. With its Soviet hijack plot and one-man-vs-the-world action hero, "Air Force One" belongs to a golden age of action movies, when every potential blockbuster could be described as 'Die Hard on a .
At a whopping 13 spots down the succession list, the chances of a Secretary of Education ever becoming president are extremely slim. But when evil robots slaughter 99% of the world population, all bets are off. Roslin is unique on this list because her character never had any presidential ambitions and was thrust into the role by circumstance alone. She's proof that sometimes the people who make the best leaders are the ones who never wanted the job in the first place.
Dueling Nixons! Langella is brilliant as the ex-president, particularly in a scene where he drunkenly confesses his sins to TV host David Frost over the phone (even though most Nixon biographers agree that the conversation never actually took place).
Way before Eddie Murphy played four different people in "Coming to America," Peter Sellers played the role of a lifetime in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 satire, "Dr. Strangelove," doing triple duty as a deranged Nazi scientist, a meek British captain and the American president. As President Merkin Muffley, Sellers attempts to placate his Cabinent by uttering the classic line, "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"
It took a fantasy children's movie for the film world to finally get a solid Teddy Roosevelt portrayal. Though with Scorsese planning to make a Roosevelt biopic starring Leonardo DiCaprio, we have a feeling there will be a new definitive Teddy performance.
Tricky Dick gets the Oliver Stone treatment is this 1995 biography. Hopkins may not look a lot like Nixon, but he nails the president's cold and calculating mannerisms.
Few fictional presidencies mirrored reality like Josiah Bartlet's. From North Korean nuclear threats to genocide in Darfur, Bartlet faced many of the same problems that plagued George W. Bush who was president during most of 'The West Wing''s run. Bartlet, however, was a moderate liberal, and his responses to real-world issues afforded viewers a peek into an alternate history where Bush actually lost the 2000 election to a Democrat (albeit one who was a lot more charismatic than Al Gore).
For '24''s first (and finest) 5 seasons, David Palmer was pretty much everything a president should be: strong, clear-headed and willing to put up with the icy stares and mouth-breathing insanity of the series' hero, Jack Bauer. Dennis Haysbert once said that his portrayal of a black president helped pave the way for Barack Obama.
By the time Allison Taylor hit the scene, '24' had already seen its best days. But Cherry Jones provides a strong performance despite the silliness of the show's last two seasons.
The year was 1998, and the nation was enthralled by Ben Affleck's astronaut suit and Liv Tyler's animal crackers. But it's easy to forget that 'Armageddon' wasn't the only interstellar collision movie on the market that summer. Arguably the better of the two films, 'Deep Impact,' featured one of the best movie presidents of all time in Morgan Freeman's Tom Beck, a solemn yet inspiring voice in the face of assured destruction.
Although Greenwood would go on to play a fictional president in 'National Treasure: Book of Secrets,' the actor first got his presidential roll on in this tense drama documenting the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Even though Chevy Chase was only on 'SNL' for a brief time, he left an indelible mark. Perhaps his funniest moment occurred when Chase lent his world-famous falling skills to one of the greatest spills of all time: Gerald Ford hitting the ground while deplaning Air Force One. Aykroyd graced the TV screens many times as multiple presidents.
What if the president was not the person America elected into office but in fact an imposter? Would it make a difference? Or is the president just a figurehead for unseen forces who are really pulling the strings? That's the scenario posed by 'Dave:' when the president suffers a stroke, power-hungry politicians bring in an impersonator to prevent the do-gooder vice president (Ben Kingsley) from taking office. They didn't count on Kevin Kline's Dave becoming a populist hero when he turns job creation and the fight against homelessness into national initiatives.
The Dude for President! In 'The Contender,' Jeff Bridges plays a president who defends his VP candidate (Joan Allen) against character assassination. But what if the easy-going California-native actually WAS president? We'd definitely be a lot closer to world peace, with Bridges repeating 'This aggression will not stand, man!' in every single State of the Union address.
After discovering that he is a descendant of Thomas Jefferson, the attention-hungry Tracy Jordan decides to make a biopic of the founding father and play every part himself. Dear Hollywood: please make this movie. It can't be any worse than 'Cop Out.'
In one of the most underrated comedies of the last decade, ex-NFL linebacker Terry Crews plays President Camacho, the leader of a futuristic society where all remnants of intelligence have been squeezed out of the global gene pool. Camacho is a bazooka-toting statesman whose biggest national threat is a shortage of burrito coverings and whose biggest national iniative involves watering plants with energy drinks.
With respect to some of the more pacifistic presidents on this list, sometimes you just have to throw down and kick some alien butt. Nicholson's James Dale can't get over his own 'Why can't we all get along' rhetoric and pays the ultimate price for it.
The lone bright spot of a series that really went off the rails, Nielsen plays the same 'gravely-serious-buffoon' character that he refined in the Naked Gun series with hilarious results. After aliens demonstrate their method of urinating through their fingertips, Harris muses, 'we are not so much different after all' ...
Fighter pilot with moves that make those Top Gun jets look like paper airplanes? Check. Leader who unites not only the nation but the world with one of the greatest speeches in the history of cinema? Check. We really wish Pullman would do more science fiction movies.
Emails the House Oversight Committee released this month revealed Trump tried to pressure the Justice Department to probe his election-fraud theories as he sought to discredit President Biden’s election victory.
