Nikki Haley appeared on Saturday Night Live over the weekend in a segment mocking her as well as Donald Trump.
The skit opened at a “CNN Town Hall,” and Haley was introduced as a “concerned South Carolina voter.” Smiling, and greeted with cheers and applause, Haley asked Trump (impersonated by James Austin Johnson): “My question is, Why won’t you debate Nikki Haley?” Johnson’s Trump then mistakes Haley for Nancy Pelosi, “the woman who was in charge of security on January 6.”
In response to a crack that “women are terrible with money,” Haley took a swipe at Trump, saying, “You spent $50 million in your own legal fees. Do you need to borrow some money?” When Johnson’s Trump riffed on her name — “Nikki Haley Joel Osment” — she hit both Trump and Biden by joking that “I see dead people” would be “what voters will say if they see you and Joe on the ballot.”
The skit concluded with a question from a member of the CNN audience, played by the episode’s host, Ayo Edebiri (of Hulu’s The Bear), who asked Haley: “What would you say was the main cause of the Civil War? And do you think it starts with an ‘s’ and ends with a ‘lavery’?” (A reference to Haley’s gaffe in New Hampshire, where she responded to a question about the Civil War without mentioning slavery.) “Yes,” Haley replied, “I probably should have said that the first time.”
This kind of self-deprecating humor is sorely missing in American politics. And Haley pulled it off with class. But while she’s signaling that, on a personal level, she doesn’t take herself too seriously, the trouble is that, on a political level, neither do many others.
