'Saturday Night Live' Mocks Presidential Debate's Mute Button and Rudy Giuliani's 'Borat' Controversy

SNL
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Jim Carrey and Alec Baldwin returned to guest star as Joe Biden and Donald Trump over the weekend.

Saturday Night Live once again took aim at the presidential election cycle this week with another cold open sketch based on the the debates. Jim Carrey's Joe Biden and Alec Baldwin's Donald Trump returned to the stage to face off in a sketch mocking the pair's final showdown before Nov. 3.

Maya Rudolph kicked off the sketch -- this time playing moderator Kristen Welker, instead of Kamala Harris, as she has in weeks past -- and she pointed out the main attraction from this particular debate: the highly anticipated mute button.

"Tonight we have a mute button, because it was either that or tranquilizer darts, and the president has a very high tolerance for those after his COVID treatment," Rudolph's Welker joked, before introducing the two candidates.

This is the fourth time in four episodes of SNL that Carrey's Biden and Baldwin's Trump have opened the show, and like the third presidential debate itself, there wasn't much going on. The pair traded slightly exaggerated barbs and mocked the candidates idiosyncratic tendencies for several minutes until it was time to start the show.

One highlight of the low-key cold open came when Kate McKinnon brought out her iconic, ghoulish Rudy Giuliani impression to poke fun at the former New York Mayor's Borat controversy. McKinnon's Giuliani was introduced facing away from camera and making a questionable gesture with his hand in his suit pants, before turning around and revealing that he was just adjusting his mic.

"What, huh? No! It's not what it looks like. My microphone was stuck. On my balls," McKinnon's Giuliani yelled. "Is this another Borat? You gotta tell me if it's a Borat!"

Check out the video below for more on how this season of SNL has mined the election season for comedy, and managed to keep the cast and crew safe amid the pandemic.

SNL airs live, coast-to-coast, on Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET, 8:30 p.m. PT on NBC.

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