--- title: Bernie Sanders and Larry David Appear on SNL description: The Vermont Senator met his doppelgänger canonical: https://time.com/4211061/bernie-sanders-larry-david-saturday-night-live/ author: Sam Frizell article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-02-07T06:46:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:46:33.652Z article:section: Politics og:title: Watch Bernie Sanders and Larry David Play Each Other on SNL og:description: The Vermont Senator met his doppelgänger og:url: https://time.com/4211061/bernie-sanders-larry-david-saturday-night-live/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2bae7634c4dfb456/69887c843c16394faa45bead/gettyimages-508766210.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 594 og:image:height: 334 og:image:alt: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) speaks at a campaign rally on February 6, 2016 in Rindge, New Hampshire. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch Bernie Sanders and Larry David Play Each Other on SNL twitter:description: The Vermont Senator met his doppelgänger twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2bae7634c4dfb456/69887c843c16394faa45bead/gettyimages-508766210.jpg?branch=production&width=594&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Watch Bernie Sanders and Larry David Play Each Other on _Saturday Night Live_ > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: September 2026. ## TIME D.C. Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition D.C. Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Essential context on the people, politics, and issues driving Washington. D.C. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=5cee0ef4-2c44-4793-9266-5b12f66f6a77&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Feb 7, 2016 6:46 AM UTC  Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) speaks at a campaign rally on February 6, 2016 in Rindge, New Hampshire. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) speaks at a campaign rally on February 6, 2016 in Rindge, New Hampshire. Andrew Burton—Getty Images by [Sam Frizell](https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/) ## Sam Frizell Feb 7, 2016 6:46 AM UTC Bernie Sanders and Larry David are pretty, pretty, pretty good. The Vermont Senator had trouble containing a grin on Saturday night standing next to his dopplegänger on _Saturday Night Live_, where the two appeared on stage together just two days before the Democratic primary in New Hampshire. The two sometimes-prickly Jews from Brooklyn have similarly bald pates and are about five years apart in age, and have been compared at least since _Curb Your Enthusiasm_ star Larry David first played Sanders last year on SNL. But Saturday was the first time the two appeared together on stage. Sanders stepped off the campaign trail in New Hampshire to take a brief sojourn down to New York, where he could reach a national audience and poke fun at himself. Sanders’ campaign widely promoted the appearance before Saturday night, texting his supporters shortly before he appeared on air and changing his [Twitter photo](https://twitter.com/BernieSanders) to a photo of David. Appearing on SNL is an unusual shtick for Sanders, who is obsessively on-message during his campaign and says he despises frivolity in politics. In an interview with TIME last year, he derided coverage of politics as a “baseball game,” saying he wanted to focus on the issues. The cliches of both men were on full display on Saturday. In one skit, David plays a cantankerous passenger on a ship that has sailed into a storm. In order to get onto a lifeboat, David’s character says he should get priority because he is from a rich family. And that, of course, is Sanders’ cue to enter. “I am so sick of the one percent getting this preferential treatment!” says Sanders as he strides out on stage. “Enough is enough! We need to unite and work together if we’re all going to get through this!” “That sounds like socialism to me,” David responds. “Democratic socialism!” Sanders retorts. David in an earlier skit plays a more exacting and irritable version of Sanders running for president on the say of the Iowa caucus, in which David-as-Sanders accidentally turns off voters. David refuses to shake a voter’s hand after she sneezes in it. “I’m running for president. I don’t shake disgusting hands,” David says. He later touts his average donation size. “Listen, people love me. I have more individual donations than any candidate in history and I don’t take from millionaires and billionaires. The average donation is—” and then his campaign staff interrupts—”$27, yeah everbody knows!” (Sanders repeats the average donation size often on the campaign trail.) Hillary Clinton appeared on SNL last year, [playing a bartender](http://time.com/4060549/hillary-clinton-seeks-to-connect-to-wider-audience-in-snl-appearance/) alongside Kate McKinnon. Donald Trumphas also appeared on the show. Sanders returns to campaigning in New Hampshire on Sunday. An aide to the Senator said he was not spending the night in New York and would return immediately after the show was over. At the end of their screen time together, David turns to Sanders and asks him how the campaigning in New Hampshire is going. Sanders repeats David’s signature _Curb Your Enthusiasm_ line. “It’s pretty, pretty, pretty good,” he says. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4211061/bernie-sanders-larry-david-saturday-night-live/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4211061/bernie-sanders-larry-david-saturday-night-live/"},"headline":"Watch Bernie Sanders and Larry David Play Each Other on Saturday Night Live","datePublished":"2016-02-07T06:46:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:46:33.652Z","description":"The Vermont Senator met his doppelgänger","url":"https://time.com/4211061/bernie-sanders-larry-david-saturday-night-live/","keywords":["Bernie Sanders","Hillary Clinton","2016 Election"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2bae7634c4dfb456/69887c843c16394faa45bead/gettyimages-508766210.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sam Frizell","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/sam-frizell/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2bae7634c4dfb456/69887c843c16394faa45bead/gettyimages-508766210.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Democratic presidential candidate Sen. 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