Culture
SNL Asks Who Can Save The Republican Party and Lands On Pete Hegseth With A Non-Alcoholic Beer
By Bruno Von Falken, . BSN Network. Satire.
Saturday Night Live returned on October 3rd with a cold open that functioned less as political satire and more as a project management debrief for a party that has somehow made being in power feel like a group punishment.
Andrew Dismukes and Ashley Padilla played Republican strategists tasked with generating what they called 'organic excitement' for the GOP, a phrase that has not been used in that context without irony since approximately 2004. Their method was to parade celebrities through a crisis meeting and ask each one to say something encouraging. The results were not encouraging.
Marcello Hernández appeared first as Marco Rubio, who addressed his constituents in Spanish before acknowledging, in the same calm tone a pharmacist uses to explain a drug interaction, that the President had perhaps not fully delivered on his stated promises. This was meant to be the sympathetic cameo. It was the most honest thing anyone said all night and it lasted nine seconds.
JD Vance arrived next, played with the specific energy of a man who has decided that sincerity is a competitive advantage and has been wrong about this for three years running. He said several things about the American working class that were received by the strategists the way a job applicant receives the words 'we'll be in touch.'
Mitch McConnell appeared briefly and said nothing that required a performer to move their face very much, which may have been the most accurate piece of casting in the show's history.
Tom Holland, who is technically British, was brought in as the celebrity wildcard, which tells you something about the state of the American celebrity bench that nobody involved seems to want to look at directly.
The sketch's emotional climax came when Hegseth, played with cheerful commitment by a cast member who deserves hazard pay, chugged a full can of Spider-Man branded non-alcoholic beer. The non-alcoholic detail was the joke. It was also, by the standards of Pete Hegseth's documented relationship with beverages, an improvement, and the applause from the studio audience had the specific quality of people laughing at something they were not entirely sure they should be laughing at.
'We feel this represents a new chapter,' one of the strategists said, gesturing at the empty can.
The cold open ran approximately four minutes. The Republican Party's current majority in the Senate runs approximately two more years. Both are expected to be renewed despite reviews.
Spider-Man was unavailable for comment, but his beer looked fine.
The story we are making fun of: https://variety.com/2026/tv/news/snl-pete-hegseth-spider-man-non-alcoholic-beer-1236898415/