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How SNL Spiked the Football That Hillary Clinton Would Win the Presidency

November 16, 2016

Saturday Night Live went into a state of mourning normally reserved for a mass-casualty terrorist attack in its first show after Donald Trump's surprising victory over Hillary Clinton.

Emmy winner Kate McKinnon, donning her Clinton costume, sang Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" in front of a silent audience for the show's normally humorous cold open. Since it's a comedy show and no one was dead, this was odd, seeing as Clinton losing an election to a reality show star is pretty funny, no matter your politics.

Once her song was finished, McKinnon looked in the camera and said, her eyes gleaming with tears, "I'm not giving up, and neither should you. And live from New York, it's Saturday Night."

The show's obvious left-leaning politics aside, this also might have been a tacit, sorrowful admission of the show's premature football-spiking for a Clinton victory.

In all three debate segments, SNL had lines showing clear confidence in a Clinton win that drew whoops and cheers from the audience.

"I think I'm going to be president," Clinton (McKinnon) deadpans after Alec Baldwin's Donald Trump goes off the rails during the first SNL debate.

After the 2005 Access Hollywood tape of Trump discussing grabbing women "by the pussy" was released, the very next SNL debate suggested the race was finished.

"Please help us welcome the candidates. Republican nominee Donald Trump, and ... can we say this yet?" Martha Raddatz (Cecily Strong) asks.

"Probably fine," Anderson Cooper (Alex Moffat) replies.

"President Hillary Clinton," Raddatz says.

In the last debate sketch, Chris Wallace (Tom Hanks) tells Trump, "You're probably going to lose." After a pregnant pause, Trump (Baldwin) replies, "Correct."

It wasn't just in the debate sketches that SNL thought the idea of Clinton losing to Trump was laughable.

In one skit late last year, present-day Hillary Clinton (McKinnon) tells her past self (Amy Poehler) that Donald Trump was the Republican frontrunner.

"Oh my God, we're going to be president!" past Clinton yells. The crowd screamed its approval.

In another sketch with Clinton herself appearing as a bartender named Val, Clinton (McKinnon) relishes the idea of facing Trump in the general election.

"I will destroy him and mount his hair in the Oval Office!" she yells.

In fairness, the show was not alone in its overconfidence. President Obama, along with a slew of Democrats and liberal media members, and the writer of this article, made similar assertions.