--- title: Saturday Night Live: Trump Clinton Debate vs. Real Debate description: See how Saturday Night Live's Trump vs. Clinton debate parody compared to the real thing. canonical: https://time.com/4516571/saturday-night-live-debate-comparison-reality/ author: Ashley Hoffman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-03T19:59:59.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-07T06:49:12.506Z og:title: Watch SNL's Parody Compared to the Actual Debate og:description: See how similar the debate really was in 7 moments og:url: https://time.com/4516571/saturday-night-live-debate-comparison-reality/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt96d80e97626a2ee6/6988a865cf40a8dfa0c4503f/saturday-night-live.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Saturday Night Live - Season 42 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch SNL's Parody Compared to the Actual Debate twitter:description: See how similar the debate really was in 7 moments twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt96d80e97626a2ee6/6988a865cf40a8dfa0c4503f/saturday-night-live.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # See How _Saturday Night Live's_ Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton Parody Compares to the Real Debate > Sponsored content. 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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=fba2306f-21bc-4d3b-8fcb-ef0d19ec834e&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: SNL's Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton Debate Compared to the Real Thing [Watch (HLS stream): SNL's Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton Debate Compared to the Real Thing](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/6f4JIVbn.m3u8) (2:21)  _Published 2016-10-03. Saturday Night Live has consistently leveraged presidential debates for influential satire, and during this week’s premiere, they tackled the first great debate of 2016 for laughs._ by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Oct 3, 2016 7:59 PM UTC Saturday Night Live has consistently leveraged presidential debates for influential satire, and during this week’s premiere, they tackled the first great debate of 2016 for laughs. by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Oct 3, 2016 7:59 PM UTC _Saturday Night Live_ opened its 42nd season with a direct parody of the [lively first presidential debate](http://time.com/4515908/snl-debate-alec-baldwin-kate-mckinnon-donald-trump/) between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. It was the first time [Alec Baldwin](http://time.com/4515908/snl-debate-alec-baldwin-kate-mckinnon-donald-trump/) played Trump, and the show took a different route with the candidate this season. Instead of sticking to Trump’s wealth and the wall, the cold open presented an extreme version 2.0: self-satisfied, defensive and paranoid. For Kate McKinnon’s part, _SNL_ went back to the standard Clinton material: a stiff character who cannot for the life of her seem relatable, overly coached and foaming at the mouth for the presidency — a feat the show suggested Clinton could achieve if people voted during the debate’s live broadcast. Baldwin took Trump’s emphasis on Sean Hannity to ridiculous heights and McKinnon’s Clinton struggled a lot more than the real deal when recalling the specifics of her father’s work with drapes. The moments were all familiar, sure, but how did the sketch’s exaggerations compare to one of the hammiest debates ever? See _SNL’s_ version of the events vs. to the real thing in this video comparison. ## Transcript [00:00] [ APPLAUSE ] Hillary Clinton. Donald [00:04] J. Trump. [ APPLAUSE ] Live [00:08] from New York, it's [00:13] Saturday night .>> Secretary Clinton .>> Whoo, okay. [00:17] [ LAUGH ] [00:19] [ LAUGH ] [00:21] [ SOUND ] [00:23] When [00:26] the [00:28] woman's speaking [00:34] up somebody's sniffing here. I call it Trumped up, [00:38] trickle down because that's exactly what it would be. I don't [00:42] know, I guess if I had to call it something off the top of the [00:44] old dome with no prep whatsoever. I don't know. I guess I'd [00:48] call it Trumped up trickle down economics. Our jobs [00:52] are fleeing the country. They're going to Mexico, they're [00:56] going to many other countries. You look at what China is [00:59] doing to our- Our jobs are fleeing this country. They're [01:02] going to Mexico. They're going to China. I was against the [01:06] war in Iraq. I then spoke to Sean Hannity, which everybody [01:10] refuses to call Sean Hannity. I had numerous [01:12] conversations with Sean Hannity at Fox. And Sean [01:15] Hannity. I was against the war. Ask anyone in the world [01:19] named Sean Hannity. I told Sean Hannity. Call Sean [01:21] Hannity. My father was a small business man. He worked [01:24] really hard. He printed drapery fabrics on. Long tables, [01:27] where they pull out those fabrics and he went down with a [01:31] silk screen and dumped the paint in, and took the [01:33] squeegee, and kept going. Laborers like my own human [01:36] father who made, I guess drapes, or [01:40] printed, drapes or sold drapes or [ INAUDIBLE ] Some of it [01:44] said in entertainment, some of it said somebody whose [01:47] been very vicious to me, Rosie O'Donell. I said very tough [01:50] things to her and I think everybody would agree that she [01:53] deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her. Why are we [01:56] talking about this woman? We should be talking about the [01:59] important issues like Rosie O'Donell [ LAUGH ]. How she's [02:05] a fat loser. [ LAUGH ] And everyone agrees with me, and I [02:09] just wanted to bring that up in a presidential debate ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4516571/saturday-night-live-debate-comparison-reality/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4516571/saturday-night-live-debate-comparison-reality/"},"headline":"See How Saturday Night Live's Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton Parody Compares to the Real Debate","datePublished":"2016-10-03T19:59:59.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-07T06:49:12.506Z","description":"How similar the debate really was in 7 moments","url":"https://time.com/4516571/saturday-night-live-debate-comparison-reality/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Hillary Clinton","Television","politics","Comedy","Election 2016","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt96d80e97626a2ee6/6988a865cf40a8dfa0c4503f/saturday-night-live.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ashley Hoffman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt96d80e97626a2ee6/6988a865cf40a8dfa0c4503f/saturday-night-live.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Saturday Night Live - Season 42","caption":"Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump and Kate McKinnon as Hillary Clinton pose for a picture during the \"Debate Cold Open\" sketch on Saturday Night Live on Oct. 1, 2016.","creditText":"Will Heath—NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4516571/saturday-night-live-debate-comparison-reality/","name":"See How Saturday Night Live's Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton Parody Compares to the Real Debate"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"SNL's Donald Trump vs. Hillary Clinton Debate Compared to the Real Thing","description":"Saturday Night Live has consistently leveraged presidential debates for influential satire, and during this week’s premiere, they tackled the first great debate of 2016 for laughs.","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/6f4JIVbn/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2016-10-03T19:02:22.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/6f4JIVbn.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/4516571/saturday-night-live-debate-comparison-reality/","duration":"PT2M21S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/4516571/saturday-night-live-debate-comparison-reality/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```