That was the premise behind the cold open of the May 9 episode of “Saturday Night Live,” which found aggro secretary of war Pete Hegseth (as played the season by Colin Jost) causing trouble at a D.C. area dive bar (“Martin’s Tavern”) alongside Justice Brett Kavanaugh (host Matt Damon) and FBI head Kash Patel (Aziz Ansari, returning for a second week).
The three bros chat about how wild it is that Hegseth, who used to do the weather on Fox News Weekends, is now the in charge of the world’s biggest military — a fact that, indeed, truly bothers Kavanaugh.
“Hey, can I just say we are both kicking ass, right now,” Kavanaugh said to Hegseth, on the same week that he helped dismantle the Voting Rights Act. “Dude, can you believe I just like started a war?” Hegseth responded. Added Kavanaugh: “Can you believe I ended abortion? Your body, my choice!”
Kavanaugh shared a sheet of paper featuring “a new voting district that I approved in Tennessee.. actually, no, that’s, that’s a field sobriety test. They told me to draw a circle.”
Hegseth then admitted that he was concerned about the fate of his job as it’s tied to the Iran War. “I’m just worried it’s gonna end, you know, it’s kind of like I took a bunch of blue chew and then didn’t bang anyone! Like, okay, I guess I’ll just watch Seinfeld bricked up.”
Kavanaugh then noted that the real war is male loneliness — and that’s when their drinking buddy Patel arrived.
As they bonded, the trio got lost in the sauce, talking alcohol incessantly, from Hegseth’s creation “The Reverse Irish Car Bomb” to Patel’s custom liquor bottles the real Patel has been allegedly handing it out as gifts.
“I made my own FBI bourbon with my name on it,” Patel said. “Yes, somehow this is a real thing that I, the FBI director, has made.”
When Patel was asked if the rumor was true that he made everybody in the FBI take a polygraph, the FBI director said, “No, I told them to make a graph of everyone in the FBI who’s poly. My girlfriend wants to open up our relationship. She says she wants to bring other dudes into the bedroom and for me to stay in the living room.”
At the end of the sketch, Kavanaugh dropped the big bomb: “Since we’re opening up, can I tell you guys something top secret? We’re gonna let Trump do a third term… Trump found the original Constitution, and at the end, he wrote, ‘Psych!’ We’re gonna live forever!”
This isn’t the first time Damon has played Kavanaugh on “SNL.” On the Season 44 premiere in September 2018, Damon parodied Kavanaugh’s Senate testimony, depicting his belligerence and frequently yelling, referencing beer, among other things — using many of the actual quotes from the hearing.
This week’s “Saturday Night Live” is the season’s penultimate episode, with Damon hawking his upcoming blockbuster “The Odyssey” and Noah Kahan as musical guest.
Watch the cold open below:
