Watch Bill Murray's surprise turn as Steve Bannon on SNL

Former SNL funnyman Bill Murray returned to his old haunt to portray the dermatologically challenged mastermind of Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign

Video by Jamie Dunn | 15 Jan 2018

If there’s been one silver lining to Donald Trump being elected President of the United States, it’s that it’s proved a highly-combustible fuel to reignite political satire across the pond. Late-night hosts like Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee and Seth Meyers have provided electric commentary on Trump's turbulent time in the White House, while sketch show Saturday Night Live has proved a particularly prickly thorn in his side.

Trump has taken to Twitter several times to lament the long-running sketch show, including a rant sent exactly one year ago today saying “NBCNews is bad but Saturday Night Live is the worst of NBC. Not funny, cast is terrible, always a complete hit job. Really bad television!”

Alec Baldwin has been portraying Trump since his first televised debate with Hillary Clinton, while other members of the SNL cast – including Kate McKinnon, who plays both Jeff Sessions and Kellyanne Conway – have filled out roles as Trump’s team. Most inspired, so far, however, was the guest appearance of Bridesmaids star Melissa McCarthy as Trump’s then under-fire press secretary Sean Spicer, playing him as a apoplectic buffoon who doesn’t talk so good; Spicer was fired shortly after McCarthy’s portrayal.

The one significant member of Trump’s team who SNL have failed to nail, however, is Steve Bannon, the Breitbart News co-founder and Trump’s dermatologically challenged White House Chief Strategist. Thus far, the best the SNL writers have come up with in relation to Bannon is a skeleton that looks like it’s supposed to be Death himself. Not exactly hilarious.

At one time there was talk of Trump’s nemesis Rosie O'Donnell playing the President's former right-hand man, but SNL might have found an even better candidate in Bill Murray, who made a surprise appearance as the recently-fired Bannon on Saturday’s edition of SNL. The Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day legend popped up in the show’s cold opener, which took place on the set of early morning news show Morning Joe, where the guest was Michael Wolff discussing his Trump tell-all Fire and Fury.

Wolff was played by another SNL alumnus, Fred Armisen, who was telling Kate McKinnon's Mika Brzezinski and Alex Moffat's Joe Scarborough about some outlandish stories that didn’t make it into his book, including Trump’s daily "baby races." Murray was then brought on as Bannon, who was surprisingly upbeat given that he’s recently lost his job at the White House and at Breitbart, telling the panel that he’s currently working on a web series for Crackle, but plans to bounce back into politics before the next election.

"As a king-maker, I convinced this country to elect Donald, and I can do it again,” says Murray’s delusional Bannon. “I’m already auditioning candidates, got some prospects: Logan Paul, Martin Shkreli, the Subway guy Jared Fogle, he's back, he's electable,” he revealed, before adding: “It's time for America to slide down the Bannon-ster."

Take a look at Murray’s turn as Bannon in the player above (or on SNL's YouTube channel).