Mere hours after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election, Dave Chappelle returned to “Saturday Night Live,” skewering President Donald Trump and his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in his monologue.
“Now Trump is gone,” he said. “A lot of people don’t like him, but I thought the guy was at least an optimist. I am not as optimistic as he was. I look at it like there’s bad people on both sides.”
He went on to joke about the difference in how Trump, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and the late Herman Cain were treated after testing positive for the novel coronavirus. (Christie went into intensive care and Cain died of COVID-19.)
“Think about that,” Chappelle said. “That’s your leader … for four years. What kind of man makes sure he’s OK while his friends fight for their lives and die? A white man.”
He also brought up the contention around wearing masks, saying: “I don’t know why poor white people don’t like wearing masks. What is the problem? You wear masks at the Klan rally, wear it to Walmart too.”
He added: “You don’t even want to wear your mask because it’s oppressive? Try wearing the mask that I’ve been wearing all these years. I can’t even tell something true unless it has a punchline behind it.”
Chappelle ended his monologue by imploring “everybody who’s celebrating today to remember, it’s good to be a humble winner. Remember when I was here four years ago, how bad that felt? Remember that half the country right now still feels that way.”
In Chappelle’s 2016 appearance, he not only talked about the shock of Trump’s victory, but also about Black Lives Matter, being wealthy and unrest in Portland.
“I didn’t know that Donald Trump was going to win the election,” he said. “I did suspect it. Seemed like Hillary (Clinton) was doing well in the polls and yet … I know the whites. You guys aren’t as full of surprises as you used to be.
“America’s done it,” he added. “We’ve actually elected an internet troll as our president. I haven’t seen white people this mad since the O.J. verdict. I watched a white riot in Portland, on television the other night … I’m wishing Donald Trump luck, and I’m going to give him a chance. And we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one too.”
Back then, he also touched on mass shootings and suggesting that was more important than the results of the election.
“We’ve been here before,” he said. “All these shootings in the last year. The worst mass shootings in the history of the United States. There’s more shootings than I can literally count.”
He mentioned the mass shootings again Saturday. “You guys remember what life was like before COVID? There was a mass shooting every week. … Thank God for COVID. Something had to lock these murderous whites up and keep them in the house.”