Shane Gillis Says SNL Asked Him To Play Donald Trump For All Of Season 50 & He Turned Them Down

No take backs. If you've tuned into Saturday Night Live for it's historic 50th season, you've seen that the long-running sketch comedy show has pulled out all of the stops for this election season. They've brought back former SNL cast members Maya Rudolph, Andy Samberg and Dana Carvey to portray Kamala Harris, her husband Douglas Emhoff, and Joe Biden, respectively. And they even got comedian Jim Gaffigan to play vice presidential candidate Tim Walz. Those are undoubtedly some big names in comedy, but the biggest name - at least right now - that SNL tried to get was apparently a swing and a miss. And the ironic, funny thing about it all is that the person they tried to get to portray Donald Trump for Season 50 to "reinvent the impression" would have likely already been on the show if they wouldn't have fired him a week after they announced him as a cast member back in 2019. Shane Gillis. That's right. Saturday Night Live tried to get Shane Gillis to come back to play Trump for the entirety of Season 50 -and let bygones be bygones - but the comedian turned them down. Gillis hosted SNL back in February, which was at that point a huge development in the saga, considering the comedy show parted ways with the comedian after "offensive" material was uncovered in some of his previous work.

Then fast forward to this year, when Shane Gillis was allegedly given the opportunity to come back to the show for a semi-full-time role, and the popular comedian apparently hit SNL with a, "Thanks, but no thanks." That was revealed when Gillis was at a Las Vegas comedy festival called Skankfest recently, and the other podcasters/comedians there mentioned that no one thought Gillis would actually be there (because he'd be on SNL doing his Trump impersonation).

Gillis jokingly said on stage that he told Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels he couldn't do his Trump for SNL's 50th season because he had to attend the Nevada comedy festival: "They said, ‘Are you serious? You’re going to say no?’ I said, ‘Lorne, I’ve got to go to Coke Magic.’” In the end, SNL stuck with current cast member James Austin Johnson to keep portraying Donald Trump on the show. And to be clear, he does a tremendous impersonation... but it will be a little difficult for Saturday Night Live fans to not think what a Shane-Gillis-Trump would have looked like opposite of Maya Rudolph's Kamala Harris. After all, we did get somewhat of a "Trump-Off" last season when Shane Gillis and James Austin Johnson both played the former president for a "Trump Sneakers" sketch. Take a look and see what you think is the better Donald Trump impression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwgzcXnOHyI