'Saturday Night Live' Lampoons Rudy Giuliani Election Fraud Hearings in Politically Charged Cold Open

Kate McKinnon as Rudy Giuliani on 'SNL'
Will Heath/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

Kate McKinnon busted out her celebrated Giuliani impression to mock the lawyer's controversial political hearing.

Saturday Night Live returned for its first new episode after a three-week hiatus and hit the ground running with a cold open sketch that poked fun at Rudy Giuliani's embarrassing election fraud hearing in Michigan this week. Kate McKinnon busted out her vampiric impression of the controversial lawyer for a politically charged sketch that brought laughs without needing help from a guest star.

The sketch focused primarily on Giuliani bringing forth "witnesses" to supposed voter fraud before an assembly of the Michigan legislature, as part of Donald Trump's ongoing efforts to overturn the 2020 election based on unsubstantiated claims of misconduct and vote tampering.

Cecily Strong made her return to Studio 8H -- after appearing virtually from Canada earlier in the season due to scheduling issues -- and played the now-infamous witness Melissa Carone.

Strong brilliantly brought Carone's slurred, incoherent testimony to life by essentially playing her beloved character, Girl You Wish You Hadn't Started a Conversation With at a Party.

The hearing also featured "testimony" from the My Pillow guy (Beck Bennett), Nicole Kidman's character from The Undoing (Chloe Fineman), and two of the men who tried to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (played by Pete Davidson and Kyle Mooney), among other laughable witnesses.

While many fans expected an appearance from either Jim Carrey's Joe Biden, Maya Rudolph's Kamala Harris or Alec Baldwin's Trump -- McKinnon proved definitively that the talented cast can deliver a strong cold open all on their own.

Check out the video below for a look at how SNL tackled this year's historic and divisive election season.

Saturday Night Live airs live, coast-to-coast at 11:30 p.m. ET, 8:30 p.m. PT on NBC.

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