In his first year in office, President Trump has told literally thousands of lies. And it’s nothing new. In fact, before ascending to the highest office in the land, Trump was a wholesale rusemaker, known to literally create people who didn’t exist in attempts to make himself look better.
Cases in point: In the ’80s, he called in to the New York City papers claiming to be his own publicist, “John Barron.” And now in a new interview, Pete Davidson of “Saturday Night Live” said that when Trump hosted the show in 2015, he pretended someone called him to report blockbuster sales of his book “Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again.”
Only it was pretty obvious to the cast that he was faking — Trump had arranged for someone to call him, but they didn’t, so he just picked up his phone and started talking.
“He, like, faked a phone call during a table read,” said Davidson on Complex’s “Open Late.” “Right as we started, he goes [mimes picking up a cell phone], ‘Uh, hello!’ He goes, ‘Oh fantastic, OK, great,’ and then he hung up. And then he goes, ‘Hey everybody, my book just went number one!'”
Davidson continued: “I swear on my life. And we were all like, yo, that phone didn’t ring. And also, how did he have time to say that? Because you answered and went, ‘Yup, oh my God, that’s great.’ He didn’t even go, ‘Hello?’ [Pause] Oh, wow, that’s awesome man. We were all like, urgh.”
LOL this Pete Davidson Trump story is phenomenal … @ComplexOpenLate tmrw 10 pm pic.twitter.com/9Kf8dy8YWC
— RosenbergTelevision (@Rosenbergradio) May 16, 2018
For that and apparently other reasons, Davidson said Trump was “weird all week” preparing for the show.
After leaving “SNL” in 2017, former cast member Taran Killam said that Trump episode was “rough.” “It was not enjoyable at the time and only grows more embarrassing and shameful as time goes on,” he told NPR, adding the implications of Trump’s appearance on the show were not considered at the time.
“I don’t necessarily put so much weight into [the idea of] Trump hosting SNL helping him become president, but there’s definitely something where it normalizes him and it makes it OK for him to be part of the conversation,” he said. “Looking back … there’s nothing good I can take from that week. Because he’s not an enjoyable person to be around.”
