Dave Chappelle talks 2020 election, COVID, and Donald Trump in scathing ‘SNL’ monologue

NBC/Will Heath2020 isn’t over yet, but Dave Chappelle summed up the bulk of it during his opening monologue on Saturday Night Live. 

The booking was something of a bookend for the sketch show, which tapped the acclaimed comic to take the stage four years ago, after President Donald Trump‘s surprise election victory over Hillary Clinton.

Chappelle, 47, donned a navy blue suit and smoked a cigarette as he delivered a 16-minute set chock full of the “n-word.” In his opening, which came just hours after Joe Biden was declared the election winner and president-elect on Saturday, Dave recounted receiving a text from a friend in London about the news. 

“She said, ‘The world feels like a safer place now that America has a new president,'” he recalled. 

“I said, ‘That’s great, but America doesn’t,'” he added before reminding the audience of life before the global pandemic. 

“A mass shooting every week. Anyone remember that? Thank god for COVID. Someone had to lock these murderous whites up, keep them in the house,” he said as the audience erupted in applause and laughter. 

Chappelle also slammed “poor white people” who don’t like to wear masks.

“What is the problem? You wear a mask at the Klan rally, wear it at the Walmart too,” he said.

“Rest of the country trying to move forward and these white [people] keep holding us back,” he added. “Don’t even wanna wear your mask because it’s oppressive … try wearing the mask I’ve been wearing all these years. I can’t even tell something true unless it has a punchline behind it.”

Towards the end of his monologue, the comedian poked fun at President Donald Trump for catching the coronavirus.

“He called the coronavirus the Kung flu… I’m supposed to say that, not you! It’s wrong when you say it,'” Chappelle joked. “You know, when he got coronavirus, they said everything about it on the news. You know what they didn’t say? That it was hilarious.”