“I had to go to the host meal and Kenan [Thompson], for some reason, wasn’t there. I usually didn’t go to the host meal unless Kenan went,” Jones shares. “But Taran [Killam] was there. And I remember turning to Taran and I was just making a joke. It was Trump, then Melania, then [producer] Lindsay Shookus, then Ivanka, and Jared [Kushner] was sitting beside me. And I had already noticed that Jared—because we were trying to share fish—he wouldn’t eat off the plate that I would eat on. So I already knew what was up. So I looked at Taran and I said, ‘If I kill this whole side of the table, maybe I’ll save the world.’ And then Taran was like, ‘Let me get my food to go first, because I don’t wanna be here when you do that.’ But I always think back, like, was I supposed to do it?” She adds: “I would’ve saved the world! I would be in jail, but I would’ve saved the world.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Jones opined that there needs to be another concerted search for Black female talent at SNL. (She herself was hired as a writer after such a search, alongside ex-cast member Sasheer Zamata.) “This is what I would say for SNL, I would want them to start taking more time to do it. Because it does take a little bit more effort to find a Black woman cast member, to me, than it does a white woman cast member,” Jones says. “I hate to say it that way, but you have to go and search for them. And they are out there. There are so many women I could send them, and I do. I go, hey, look at this girl, hey, look at this girl. I send them stuff all the time.”
Jones says the subject is something she talks about with Lorne Michaels frequently, and notes that the show didn’t seem to expect Ego Nwodim’s departure. She doesn’t think the show will return to having Black men impersonate women, “So I wouldn’t be surprised if later on this season they add a Black woman,” she says.
