'SNL' Spoofs Government Airstrike Group Chat Scandal

Saturday Night Live this weekend spoofed the Trump administration's group chat scandal in which top officials revealed plans to airstrike Yemen on the messaging app Signal without realizing a journalist from The Atlantic was included in the chat.

The skit follows a trio of high school girls—portrayed by Mikey Madison, Ego Nwodim, and Sarah Sherman—texting each other about guy issues when they’re added to a group text with U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, played by Andrew Dismukes. 

“FYI green light on Yemen race,” Hegseth writes. “Who’s ready to glass some Houthi rebels. Flag emoji, flag emoji, flag emoji, fire emoji, eggplant.

“Israel better bend over and spread it. Baller, water squirt emoji. God bless the troops, eggplant,” Dismukes as Hegseth continues while the girls are confused about who’s sending the texts.

When the girls suggest to the secretary that they’re in the wrong group chat, Dismukes’ Hegseth jokes off their concerns.

“LOL LOL. Could you imagine if that actually happened?” he says. “Homer disappears into bush GIF. And oh my God, everyone, sending a PDF with updated locations of all our nuclear submarines. Check out that one we got chilling right outside Shanghai. Jordan Peele sweating like crazy GIF.”

Vice President J.D. Vance, played by Bowen Yang, entered the chat afterward to talk about the strike.

“Nice job with the strike, fam. Female skier emoji,” he wrote. “My bad, meant to send fire emoji. … Egypt owes us big time for this Yemen shiz. POTUS was saying we should make them give us the pyramids.”

After more hijinks, Nwodim alerts the government leaders again that they’re talking to high school kids, prompting U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, played by Marcello Hernández, to claim that it was all a joke.

“In that case, we were totally pranking you guys,” Hernández’s Rubio replied. “But would you mind emailing your names and home addresses to deportations@ice.gov?”

The skit ends with Yang’s Vance saying, “Hey could be worse. We could have added the editor of The Atlantic again,” prompting Mikey Day, portraying the publication’s editor Jeffrey Goldberg, to say, “You did!”

Last week, U.S. National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally added the number for The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief to a group text where plans for an airstrike in the Middle East were being discussed.

“On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz,” the editor the wrote. “I assumed that the Michael Waltz in question was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser. I did not assume, however, that the request was from the actual Michael Waltz.”