Will Ferrell Returns to ‘SNL’ as Jeffrey Epstein’s Ghost in Wild Trump ‘Christmas Carol’ Cold Open

3 sources covered this compare →

Coverage diverges in the framing of the event. Deadline presented the sketch with a focus on the comedic aspect, emphasizing the humor in the interaction. In contrast, Rolling Stone highlighted the serious implications of Epstein's past,…

May 17, 2026 · 2:42 PM UTC ·4 min read · 0 reactions · 0 comments · 37 views

Will Ferrell Returns to ‘SNL’ as Jeffrey Epstein’s Ghost in Wild Trump ‘Christmas Carol’ Cold Open

#comedy #politics #television #Will Ferrell #Donald Trump #Paul McCartney #James Austin Johnson #Jeffrey Epstein

TL;DR · WeSearch summary

Will Ferrell made a comedic return to Saturday Night Live, portraying Jeffrey Epstein's ghost in a parody of A Christmas Carol. The cold open featured a humorous exchange between Ferrell's character and Donald Trump, played by James Austin Johnson. The sketch included various satirical elements, poking fun at political figures and current events.

Key facts

▪Will Ferrell returned to SNL to host the show with Paul McCartney as the musical guest.
▪In the cold open, Ferrell played the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein, visiting a sleeping Donald Trump.
▪The sketch included humorous commentary on Trump's approval ratings and fictional future scenarios.

How this story was covered

3 outlets in our directory ran this story, first to last over 11 hours. All of the coverage we found sits in one bucket: lean left. That one-sidedness is itself worth noticing.

Lean left · 2

▪ ‘SNL’ Cold Open: Jeffrey Epstein’s Ghost Gives ‘Dear Friend’ Trump Some Bad News — Rolling Stone
▪ Will Ferrell Shows Up As Jeffrey Epstein To Yuk It Up With Old Pal Trump For Blistering ‘SNL’ Cold Open — Deadline

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New York Post files mainly under news. We currently carry 11,037 of its stories.

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Original article

Decider

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Story provenance

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Record

Original publisher	Decider
Canonical URL	https://decider.com/2026/05/17/will-ferrell-snl-jeffrey-epstein-ghost-trump-christmas-carol-cold-open/
Publication time	Sun, 17 May 2026 10:42:10 -0400
Retrieval time	2026-05-17T14:47:13.125Z
Last seen	2026-05-17T14:47:13.125Z
Headline source	Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite)
Excerpt source	publisher body
Excerpt method	First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited.
Summary	WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer)
Summary source text	contentText
Citation coverage	Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL.
Cluster	XqF9qZplhjgf · 3 stories
Cluster logic	Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison.
Ranking reason	Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking.
Publisher visit	Yes — open original
Substitutes article?	No — link-out required for full text

Rights status (four layers)

Publisher-declared

No publisher-confirmed rights record for this source yet.

Machine-readable

No source-specific machine-readable restriction detected beyond the public feed.

WeSearch interpretation

WeSearch declared handling (basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed). This is WeSearch policy, not a legal grant on the publisher's behalf.

Unknown

Retrieval and training permissions are not asserted unless the publisher confirms them.

WeSearch handling by dimension

Indexing	May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)?	Allowed
Snippet	May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown?	Allowed
AI summary	May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article?	Limited
Retrieval / RAG	May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation?	Not asserted
Model training	May the content be used to train AI models?	Not asserted
Commercial reuse	May the content be reused commercially?	Not permitted

Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.

Open original publisher → Source rights JSON → Machine-readable provenance → Rights framework → WESEARCH-STORY-PROVENANCE-V1

Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand

Share this: Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X (Opens in new window) X Flipboard Share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp Email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email Click to copy URL Copy Will Ferrell Returns to ‘SNL’ as Jeffrey Epstein’s Ghost in Wild Trump ‘Christmas Carol’ Cold Open By Michael Haskoor Twitter @Tweetskoor Published May 17, 2026, 10:42 a.m. ET Where to Stream: Saturday Night Live {"content_type":"show","id":"65223844-7e4b-46e5-8b65-b0c0368a64a0","id_type":"rg","settings":{"appearance":{"general":{"drop_shadow_visible":false,"style":"minimal","widget_padding":false},"header":{"break_title":true,"stream_color":"#e80100","capitalized":true},"sub_text":{"text_visible":false},"services":{"view_all":{"color":"#e80100","text":"MORE…

Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Decider.

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