Shane Gillis returned to Saturday Night Live as host, opening the show with a monologue that touched on politics, history documentaries, and self-deprecating humor.

He began by addressing the audience’s political leanings. “Look, I get it, you’re pretty liberal here,” he said before joking that being liberal makes people feel “powerful like a Sith.” When the response was muted, he added, “All right, now I’m going to lose you even more, for my next trick…”

Gillis then moved on to commentary about both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. He called Trump’s leadership “funny” and referenced the former president’s past suggestion about acquiring Greenland. Switching to Biden, he imitated him mid-speech, saying, “My favorite thing about Biden was, anytime he was giving a speech, in between teleprompters his face would go back to being dead.”

He then introduced a bit about “a thing white guys do,...