A man named Corey Comperatore died shielding his family from a bullet meant for Donald Trump.
That was less than two years ago.
And an NBC studio audience in New York City heard a joke on Saturday about the president being assassinated at the theater – and they erupted in cheers.
Michael Che Made an Abraham Lincoln Joke on Weekend Update — About Trump
Michael Che, the Weekend Update anchor on Saturday Night Live, opened with a setup about Trump attending opening night of Chicago at the Kennedy Center.
"I think that's cool that the president is going to the theater," Che said with a grin. "I mean – what's the worst that could happen?"
The crowd went wild.
https://twitter.com/BrandonStraka/status/2040936531591086516?s=20
Every person in that studio understood the reference immediately. Abraham Lincoln – at Ford's Theatre, April 14, 1865 – took a bullet in the back of the head while watching a play.
The White House didn't let it slide.
Spokesman Davis Ingle told Fox News Digital that "Saturday Night Live hasn't been a good television show since President Trump hosted it."
That's the diplomatic response.
Here's the honest one: a network television program – operating on a federal broadcast license, obligated by law to serve the public interest – just aired an assassination joke about a sitting president who survived two real attempts on his life in 2024.
SNL Has Been on Notice With the White House Since 2024
In Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, Thomas Matthew Crooks fired eight shots at Trump during a campaign rally.
One bullet grazed Trump's ear. Another killed Corey Comperatore – a 50-year-old volunteer fire chief and girl dad who threw himself in front of his family to protect them from the gunfire.
Ryan Routh was later convicted of a separate assassination attempt at Trump's West Palm Beach golf course. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Two real attempts. One man dead. A father's daughters who will never get their dad back.
And SNL's response to all of that is: what's the worst that could happen?
The crowd – not chuckling, not groaning – cheering.
One viewer captured it perfectly on X: "The audience erupted in cheers. Not applause, not laughter, cheers. The outright advocacy of political violence is now common."
That's not hyperbole.
That's a description of what happened on NBC at 11:30 PM on a Saturday night with millions of Americans watching.
NBC Has Been Warned Before
This isn't the first time NBC and SNL have drawn fire over political abuse of federal airwaves.
In November 2024, SNL hosted Kamala Harris in a campaign cameo just days before the presidential election – without offering Trump equal airtime.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr blasted the move as "plainly designed to evade the rules."
The network was forced to file an equal-time notice and scramble to give Trump a 60-second spot during a NASCAR broadcast.
Trump has publicly called ABC and NBC "two of the worst and most biased networks in history" and raised the prospect of license revocation.
Carr has made clear that broadcasters holding federal licenses are "placed in a special position of trust" and "obligated to operate in the public interest."
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Joking that the president should be killed – to audience applause – is a test of what NBC believes "public interest" means.
What NBC Owes America
SNL gets to mock politicians. That's been true since 1975.
But Che didn't mock Trump's policies or parody his speech patterns.
He pointed at the theater Trump was sitting in and let the audience fill in the rest.
They didn't laugh. They cheered.
Lorne Michaels has run this show for five decades.
He knows exactly what that joke meant and exactly how that audience would respond. This wasn't an ad-lib.
It was produced, rehearsed, approved, and broadcast on a network that holds a federal license to serve the American public.
Corey Comperatore's daughters lost their father at a Trump rally. NBC aired a joke about giving their family a sequel.
Sources:
- Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Brian Flood, "White House fires back at 'SNL' after Michael Che cracks Trump assassination joke during 'Weekend Update'," Fox News, April 6, 2026.
- "SNL Seemingly Cracks a Joke About the Idea of Trump Getting Assassinated — Audience Cheers Wildly," Mediaite/Yahoo Entertainment, April 6, 2026.
- "FCC Commissioner Claims Kamala Harris on 'SNL' Violated Equal Time Rule," The Hollywood Reporter, November 4, 2024.
- "Trump is threatening broadcast station licenses — what that means, and how it all works," CNBC, September 19, 2025.
- "Corey Comperatore: Man killed at Trump rally in Pennsylvania a firefighter who 'died a hero,'" CNN Politics, July 14, 2024.
