--- title: 'SNL' Spoofs Trump's National Emergency Declaration description: Alec Baldwin mocked the President's declaration of a national emergency in order to build a wall on the border with Mexico canonical: https://time.com/5531360/trump-saturday-night-live-national-emergency/ author: Alejandro de la Garza article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-02-17T15:39:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:10.418Z og:title: 'Saturday Night Live' Spoofs the National Emergency Declaration, and Earns a Rebuke From President Trump og:description: "Those numbers are faker than this emergency" og:url: https://time.com/5531360/trump-saturday-night-live-national-emergency/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt565ff398fb2d1ce4/6989454909208ff6ab41358b/trump-national-emergency-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: WASHINGTON, DC - FEBRUARY 15: President Donald Trump declares a og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Saturday Night Live' Spoofs the National Emergency Declaration, and Earns a Rebuke From President Trump twitter:description: "Those numbers are faker than this emergency" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt565ff398fb2d1ce4/6989454909208ff6ab41358b/trump-national-emergency-1.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'Saturday Night Live' Spoofs the National Emergency Declaration, and Earns a Rebuke From President Trump > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=08c39b68-8ad3-4e3d-af1b-e32ebbdb4f1c&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Trump Repeated Many of His Old Claims About the Border to Justify the State of Emergency. Here Are the Facts [Watch (HLS stream): Trump Repeated Many of His Old Claims About the Border to Justify the State of Emergency. Here Are the Facts](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/wGP1x0jl.m3u8) (2:11)  _Published 2019-02-15. Here are the facts behind three of his big claims_  by [Alejandro de la Garza](https://time.com/author/alejandro-de-la-garza/)  ## Alejandro de la Garza Feb 17, 2019 3:39 PM UTC  President Donald Trump declares a national emergency at the U.S.- Mexico border during remarks about border security in the Rose Garden of the White House on February 15, 2019 in Washington, DC. President Donald Trump declares a national emergency at the U.S.- Mexico border during remarks about border security in the Rose Garden of the White House on February 15, 2019 in Washington, DC. Oliver Contreras—The Washington Post/Getty Images  by [Alejandro de la Garza](https://time.com/author/alejandro-de-la-garza/)  ## Alejandro de la Garza Feb 17, 2019 3:39 PM UTC Last nights’s Saturday _Night Live_ cold open came directly from President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration, but didn’t do much to win over the real commander-in-chief. In the opening of Saturday night’s episode, returning guest star Alec Baldwin as Trump mocked the President’s [announcement that he was declaring a national emergency](http://time.com/5530606/donald-trump-national-emergency-legal-fight/) in order to fund a wall on the border with Mexico. Trump’s Friday declaration came after Congress passed a spending bill without the funds Trump sought, following a bruising [two-month political ordeal](http://time.com/5499397/shutdown-longest-history/). “You can all see why I gotta fake this national emergency, right?” said Baldwin-as-Trump in the sketch. “I have to, because I want to. It’s really simple.” Baldwin’s Trump went on to evade questions from the satirized media. “Those numbers are faker than this emergency,” said Baldwin after being pressed on immigration crime statistics. “We need major immigration reform. Translation — wall.” Evidently, the real President Trump saw little to laugh at in the show’s depiction of his announcement. “Nothing funny about tired _Saturday Night Live_ on Fake News NBC!” the President tweeted early Sunday morning. > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1097116612279316480) Watch the full sketch here: ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] I'm gonna be signing a national emergency. We have tremendous amounts of drugs flowing into our country, much of it coming from the southern border. They say it all comes through the port of entry. It's wrong, it's wrong, it's just a lie. It's all a lie. It's wrong, it's just a lie. It's all a lie. They say walls don't work. Walls work 100 percent. [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] We're talking about an invasion of our country Country with drugs, with human traffickers, with all types of criminals and gangs. [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] [ MUSIC ] We have far more people trying toget into our country today than probably we've ever had before. And we've done an incredible job in stopping them. But it's a massive number of people. 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