This week’s edition of Saturday Night Live‘s Weekend Update started and ended with President Donald Trump being ripped over his response to the violence in Charlottesville, Va.
The episode began with Colin Jost laying into Trump’s poor approval ratings, saying the president was surprised at his faltering numbers because people always wave at him wherever he goes (in reference to Nazi salutes seen in Charlottesville).
WATCH: Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers appear as Washington and Jefferson to defend their legacies on SNL Weekend Update
Co-host Michael Che then pondered whether the past was repeating itself, wondering out loud, “Nazis? Confederates? What’s with all these old-timey threats making comebacks? What’s next, Vikings? Polio?”
He then suggested that the term “alt-right” was coined by “racist white guys trying to rebrand themselves,” comparing it to the rebranding of cable television company Time Warner Cable as Spectrum.
The hosts then began discussing the question of Confederate statues being brought down, and Trump’s comments about the dangers of condemning slave-owners from America’s history, given that founding fathers George Washington and Thomas Jefferson also owned slaves.
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WATCH: Trump calls removal of Confederate statues “foolish”
This prompted Jimmy Fallon to appear in the role of George Washington.
Accused by Che of doing some unsavoury things, Fallon appeared awkward before admitting, “Yes, I did cut down that cherry tree,” in reference to the famous tale of Washington cutting down his father’s cherry tree as a young boy.
Pressed further, Fallon’s Washington admitted that owning slaves was “wrong” and “bad,” but then tried to deflect the issue in Jefferson’s direction.
WATCH: Late-night host Seth Meyers slams Trump’s ‘clinically insane’ press conference
Seth Meyers then appeared as Thomas Jefferson, insisting that the ’70s — as in the 1770s — were “a different time, man.”
Jefferson and Washington then proclaimed that they didn’t need statues of themselves, as their legacy as founding fathers was cemented in the form of “a three-day weekend in February in which all Americans get 50 per cent off all mattresses.”
ANALYSIS: Removing Confederate symbols won’t fix America’s race and inequality issues
The next segment saw comedian and University of Virginia alumna Tina Fey appear at the co-hosts’ desk to condemn the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, and Trump’s insistence on blaming “both sides” for the violence.
Fey then pointed out that several more alt-right rallies were planned for this coming weekend including one in New York City, where she said she hopes attendees will “get the ham salad kicked out of them by a bunch of drag queens.”
WATCH: Man loses his job after being identified at Charlottesville white supremacist rally
She then implored Americans to avoid going to the rallies and instead buy a cake from a Jewish or African-American owned bakery with an American flag on it, before continuing her rant in between messy mouthfuls of cake.
“The next time when you see a bunch of white boys in polo shirts screaming about taking our country back and you want to scream — it’s not our country, we stole it from the Native Americans.”
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“And when they have a peaceful protest at Standing Rock, we shoot at them with rubber bullets, but we let you chinless turds march the streets with semi-automatic weapons.”
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