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SNL: Gold Trump Sneakers Deliver Undeserved Confidence in Fake Movie Trailer

Robert Clarke-Chan
·2-min read

Everyone knows why Shane Gillis was hired, then fired, from Saturday Night Live. But since he never appeared in an episode, there were few who actually got to see why he was tapped to join the 2019 cast in the first place.

Could part of the reason have been — as we can see in the fake movie trailer for White Men Can Trump — his killer impersonation of the former president?

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Gillis was brought in for the 2019-20 season when, after more than 30 appearances of non-cast member Alec Baldwin as Trump, the joke had worn thin. Though it would be another two years before SNL brought James Austin Johnson on as their regular Trump, judging by Gillis’ performance here, he would have been a definite improvement over the Baldwin situation.

In the spin on Like Mike, the 2002 movie about a kid who gets the basketball skills of Michael Jordan by putting on a pair of MJ’s old sneakers, Gordon Dwyer (Gillis) gains the successful bluster of Trump from a pair of those $400 gold Never Surrender high-tops. Mind you, he acquires not actual success so much as the ability to loudly proclaim his success until other people just accept it. He convinces a co-worker to give up his office, makes a woman believe that they just had sex for two hours, and even bullies a scale into saying he only weights 170 pounds.

The sketch peaks with a battle of the Trumps as Gillis comes face to face with Johnson’s version of the former POTUS. Whose impression is best? Gillis is more of the bullheaded 2016 Trump while Johnson really nails the meandering 2024 Trump, so really it’s a matter of taste. Unless SNL gets the two of them on stage with Baldwin for the ultimate Trump-off, we may never know.

Watch the sketch above, then weigh in on this weekend’s SNL hosted by Shane Gillis and featuring musical guest 21 Savage.

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