With Youssef’s Mamdani doing his thing with a helpful TikTok dance warning about this weekend’s Nor’easter, Trump bounded in like a happy puppy, Johnson summing up everyone’s confusion by noting, “For some reason no one can figure out I really really like you.” Indeed, the democratic socialist mayor and the adjudicated rapist, twice-impeached Trump seem like the most incompatible of matches, with JAJ’s Trump comparing them to those “unlikely animal friends” videos. You know, if one of the animals was credibly accused of underage sex trafficking and trying to overthrow American democracy.
Naturally, Youssef’s Mamdani mostly played straight man to Johnson’s eternally babbling Trump, here making dad jokes (“I don’t go to church on Christmas, nor’easter”), coming up with nicknames for his ideologically opposite pal (“Z-Bag, ZZ Top, Zenon: The Zequel“) and fending off the Obsession-style obsession of Ashley Padilla’s limpet-like aide Natalie Harp. (“If you hurt him, I will end you,” Padilla’s Harp hisses in Mamdani’s ear after sprinting through the rain to reach her [alleged] man.)
As in real life, the question is which if either of these antithetical political animals is playing the other, with Johnson’s as-ever uncanny Trump here at least seeming to suggest that Trump is genuinely fond of “Mamdreamy.” Nodding to the night’s host, New York Knicks star Jalen Brunson, Johnson’s Trump also made reference to the so-called Trump curse, noting of his drive-by of the NBA Finals, “I went to one game, ruined the vibe and then dipped.”
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