The year is 2017, when the politics of a U.S. president who cultivated fame and influence through the time-honored democratic forum of reality television are contested on a late-night comedy show that airs on the same channel as the president’s own program. Got that?

“Saturday Night Live” was at it again on the show’s third episode into Donald Trump’s tenure in the White House, making the new president the brunt of a series of jokes. A highlight of the show was a video starring Beck Bennett as a Homeland Security agent trying to implement the president’s immigration policies.

On the program, Kristen Stewart took hosting duties and the opportunity to remind the audience that the chief executive had once used Twitter to opine about Stewart’s relationship with her ex-partner and “Twilight” franchise co-star, Robert Pattinson. (See: Figs. 1 and 2.)

Fig. 1:

Fig. 2:

“I’m a little nervous to be hosting because I know that the president’s probably watching, and I don’t think he likes me that much,” Stewart said in her opening monologue. “Here’s how I know. Four years ago, I was dating this guy named Rob—Robert—and we broke up and then we got back together and for some reason it made Donald Trump go insane.”

Stewart indicated that she was aware of how hosting “SNL” also wouldn’t raise her stock in Trump’s vigorously publicized celebrity value market—nor would the fact that she is, as she put it, “so gay, dude.” (Post-Pattinson, Stewart has dated women.)

The show’s writers used pre-produced spoof ads as another medium for getting in their jabs, mining the ongoing fracas over Trump’s chaos-inducing “Muslim ban” for comedic value. Below is their version of what looks at first like a standard-issue airport customs video before things start getting out of hand (“SNL” via YouTube):

–Posted by Kasia Anderson

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#airport#customs and border patrol#immigration#islamophobia#kate mckinnon#muslim ban#nbc#saturday night live#snl#the apprentice