A thinly veiled Holocaust punchline didn’t seem to resonate with the audience at Saturday Night Live this weekend, Fox News reported.
Colin Jost, host of the show’s “Weekend Update” segment, said that U.S. President Donald Trump made the decision to send billions of dollars of aid to Argentina “because if history is any guide, a lot of Trump officials will end up fleeing to Argentina.”
The joke was a reference to Nazis who fled Europe for Argentina and other South American destinations after World War II in order to avoid prosecution.
Fox News reported that the quip “was met with muted laughter and an awkward pause from the studio audience, to Jost’s seeming surprise as he said, ‘OK, one clap.’ He added he was ‘just kidding.’”
Jost’s satirical news segment also included jabs at disgraced former New York congressman George Santos, whose seven-year prison sentence for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft was commuted last week by Trump.
Santos lied about his family’s Jewish heritage, including claims that his own grandparents fled the Holocaust. He wrote years ago in a position paper that he was a “proud American Jew.” On Saturday, he thanked Jesus “for never abandoning me.”
