Video ‘SNL’ cold open shows Aziz Ansari as Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth parody leads chaotic briefing "Saturday Night Live" returns with a cold open featuring Aziz Ansari as Kash Patel and Colin Jost as Pete Hegseth, parodying a White House press briefing after the Trump assassination attempt.
"Saturday Night Live" opened its Saturday episode with a White House press briefing sketch featuring Aziz Ansari as FBI Director Kash Patel, satirizing the administration’s response to an assassination attempt of President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
The sketch’s most striking moment came as Ansari’s Patel framed himself as a "trailblazer" while undercutting his own competence.
"I’m the first Indian person to suck at their job," Ansari said as Patel. "We can be just as incapable and incompetent as the Whites."
The character also mocked the agency’s investigative timeline when pressed by reporters.
Aziz Ansari appears as Kash Patel at a mock press conference, joking about the FBI’s investigation into the assassination attempt and responding to criticism of his leadership. (Candice Ward/Getty Images for Lionsgate)
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"For those of you saying I’m doing a bad job running the FBI, well, what if I told you this agency is only six weeks away from pinpointing the exact location of Osama bin Laden," Ansari said.
At another point, the character referenced the alleged manifesto tied to the Correspondents’ dinner suspect while addressing questions about his standing with Trump.
"Even the Correspondents Dinner shooter said, ‘Kill everyone but Mr. Patel,’" Ansari said. "You get a shout-out like that in a psycho’s manifesto, you must be doing something right."
The cold open also included a portrayal of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth by Colin Jost, shifting briefly to foreign policy and military operations involving Iran.
Colin Jost portrays Pete Hegseth, delivering exaggerated updates on military action and trading insults with reporters during the briefing. (Gilbert Flores/WWD)
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"As you might have seen on our sick-a-- TikTok, we’ve been bombing stuff, doing sick air raids," Jost said as Hegseth. "This war has been a movie, specifically ‘The NeverEnding Story.’"
When pressed on costs associated with the conflict, the sketch used musical parody to deflect.
"I guess I could put it in terms like a theater kid like you would understand, 525,000, 600 billion," Jost said. "In summary, war is awesome."
The sketch opened with Ashley Padilla portraying White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who introduced Hegseth before the briefing escalated.
The cold open stages a White House press room scene featuring multiple Trump administration figures addressing the attempted attack and taking questions from the press. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP)
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"That’s when you tell President Trump about your maternity and he says leave," Padilla said as Leavitt.
The sketch included Patel dismissing allegations about his conduct in office as he fielded questions from reporters. The sketch also featured a running gag about Patel denying allegations of misconduct, including questions about email access and personal behavior.
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"I’ve always been able to log into my email, except for a brief 36-hour period of time when I forgot I had changed my password," Ansari said as Patel.
The episode of Saturday Night Live followed a security breach at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where prosecutors allege suspect Cole Tomas Allen attempted to storm the event with multiple weapons. Federal authorities have said the investigation remains ongoing.
Fox News Digital reached out to the FBI for comment, but did not immediately hear back.
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CJ joined Fox News Digital's team in 2026, which highlights the vital role journalism plays in shaping politics and culture. He has years of experience analyzing and reporting on the news media.
CJ graduated from Long Beach State University in 2025 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a minor in Journalism.
Story tips can be sent to cj.womack@fox.com, and you can follow on Twitter.
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