In Saturday Night Live’s May 18, 2024 season-finale cold open, James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump impression turns courthouse remarks and running-mate speculation into a mock parade of vice-presidential contenders. The final choice is Hannibal Lecter—a fictional character, not a real candidate or an actual Trump announcement. The joke draws on Trump’s recent rally remarks about the character from The Silence of the Lambs.
What was the SNL Hannibal Lecter cold open about?
The sketch places Johnson’s Trump outside Manhattan Criminal Court while the real Trump was attending his New York hush-money trial. It begins by joking about the press conferences there, then presents a series of supposed running-mate possibilities. The format turns political speculation into an increasingly absurd bit: it starts with recognizable politicians and ends with a fictional horror-film killer.
Devon Walker appears as Senator Tim Scott. Heidi Gardner follows as South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, carrying a stuffed dog and a gun. That image refers to Noem’s recently reported account of shooting her dog Cricket; the sketch uses the account as a gag rather than independently establishing what happened.
Michael Longfellow is then wheeled out as Lecter. Johnson’s Trump introduces him with the line, “And finally, my last and favorite choice is a man I can’t stop talking about in my rallies.” The Independent quoted that line in Katie Hawkinson’s May 19, 2024 report on the cold open: The Independent’s account of the sketch.
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The Lecter appearance pushes the mock candidate parade into horror-comedy territory, including a joke about the fictional character frightening people at the border. The close returns to Trump’s trials and his election pitch.
Who played Hannibal Lecter on SNL?
Michael Longfellow played Hannibal Lecter. In the same cold open, James Austin Johnson played Donald Trump, Devon Walker played Tim Scott, and Heidi Gardner played Kristi Noem. The character of Lecter comes from The Silence of the Lambs; his appearance as a “VP pick” is the sketch’s punchline, not a real candidacy.
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Why did SNL make Hannibal Lecter Trump’s favorite VP pick?
The joke referred to remarks Trump had made at a Wildwood, New Jersey rally the week before the finale. As The Independent reported, Trump asked the crowd whether they had seen The Silence of the Lambs, called Lecter “a wonderful man,” and repeated a “friend for dinner” reference before pivoting to immigration. The sketch transforms that real-world reference into a mock running-mate reveal, with Johnson’s Trump calling Lecter his “last and favorite choice.”
Those rally remarks and the sketch dialogue belong to different moments: Trump made the remarks at the rally; Johnson delivered the later lines as part of a satirical impression. The Independent reported on both the rally reference and the SNL sketch.
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What did Trump say about Hannibal Lecter at the rally?
At the Wildwood rally, Trump referred to Lecter as “a wonderful man,” invoked The Silence of the Lambs, and used the “friend for dinner” line, according to The Independent’s May 19, 2024 account. Lecter is a fictional serial killer, so these remarks were about a film character—not a real person or political figure.
The reference surfaced again in later campaign coverage, outside the SNL sketch’s May 2024 context. Axios reported that a Harris campaign post clipped Trump discussing Lecter during a Pennsylvania town hall on October 14, 2024: Axios’s report on the later clip.
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