How Mark Mark Meadows Became the White House’s Unreliable Source

In January of 2013, after an unsuccessful attempt by Tea Party conservatives to overthrow House Speaker John Boehner, a rookie congressman from North Carolina slinked into the Speaker’s office complex inside the U.S. Capitol. Mark Meadows had not voted against Boehner on the House floor. But he had participated in the plotting—and word had since leaked out naming him as one of the conspirators. Frightened that he would be exiled to the hinterlands of the House, the freshman sought an audience with the speaker.

“He’s on the couch, sitting across from me in my chair, and suddenly he slides off the couch, down onto his knees, and puts his hands together in front of his chest,” Boehner recalled to me. “He says, ‘Mr. Speaker, will you please forgive me?’” (This incident was witnessed by several people, including Boehner’s chief of staff, Mike Sommers, who described it as “the strangest behavior I had ever seen in Congress.”)

The Speaker took pity. He figured Meadows was just a “nervous new member who wanted to be liked” and told him there was no harm done. The two men carried on fine over the next couple of years—until Meadows surprised his colleagues by voting against Boehner’s reelection in 2015. “And then he sends me the most gracious note you’ll ever read, saying what an admirable job I’ve done as Speaker,” Boehner recalled. “I just figured he’s a schizophrenic.”

That’s one diagnosis of Meadows—and trust me, there are plenty to go around in Washington. Friends would describe him as a respectable player—calculating and slippery but decent to a fault. Enemies would liken him to a political sociopath, someone whose charm and affability conceal an unemotional capacity for deception. What both groups would agree upon is that Meadows, the 61-year-old White House chief of staff, is so consumed with his cloak-and-dagger, three-dimensional-chess approach to Washington that he can’t always be trusted.

Which makes him precisely the wrong person to be at the center of an international crisis.

It was unsettling enough on Saturday morning to hear President Trump’s personal physician, Sean Conley, evading questions from the media during a news conference outside Walter Reed Medical Center. Tasked with giving an update on Trump’s bout with Covid-19, Conley wouldn’t say definitively whether the president had ever been given supplemental oxygen; what his temperature was; whether any lung damage had been detected. Making matters worse, the timeline he provided of Trump’s illness was wrong; he was forced to correct it after the briefing. Still, the big takeaway was that Trump was doing “very well,” that doctors were “extremely happy” with his condition, that the move to Walter Reed was nothing more than a “precautionary measure.”

Incredibly, just minutes after that briefing, the traveling press pool blasted out a statement provided by “a source familiar with the president’s health.” The anonymous quote hinted at something far bleaker than what the 10-member team of medical professionals had just offered: “The president’s vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We’re still not on a clear path to a full recovery.”

It became immediately obvious that Meadows was the source; he was the only White House official at Walter Reed, the only person who could have so immediately briefed the pool on the president’s condition. (Sure enough, footage quickly surfaced showing Meadows pulling the reporters to the side, asking to speak “off the record with some of y’all” for a minute.)

What wasn’t clear—and still isn’t clear—is why Meadows said what he said. (I tried to get him to explain but he did not respond to messages seeking comment.)

Here again, there are competing theories among people who know him. One is that Meadows was concerned that Americans weren’t getting the full picture on the president’s health and wanted to offer a more realistic assessment. Another is that Meadows, a lover of political drama, wanted to seed a narrative of the president on the ropes and fighting for his life, setting up the storyline of a triumphant comeback. In reality, the likeliest explanation is that Meadows, having watched the doctors shed little light on Trump’s situation, tried to be helpful by providing some needed context to reporters, but overstepped with his melodramatic wording.

Whatever the case, Meadows erred not only by stepping on the doctors’ statement with his own, but by doing so anonymously, piling enormous confusion on top of an already chaotic moment. That the reporters in the pool agreed to the chief’s ground rules at such a critical time, on such a sensitive subject matter, is bad enough; what’s unfathomable is the top staffer at a White House that regularly disparages anonymous sourcing as “Fake News“ requesting the cover of background to deliver news the entire world was waiting on.

Meadows refused to confirm that he was, in fact, the anonymous source. That didn’t stop several outlets, including the Associated Press and the New York Times, from attributing the quote to him based on their reporters’ knowledge of events. What came next, however, was all the more bizarre: Meadows told Reuters, late on Saturday afternoon, “The president is doing very well. He is up and about and asking for documents to review. The doctors are very pleased with his vital signs. I have met with him on multiple occasions today on a variety of issues.”

To recap: Meadows went on the record with Reuters to contradict what he told other reporters on the condition of anonymity earlier in the day—comments that contradicted what the president’s own doctor had broadcasted to the public after 18 hours without official word on the president’s medical condition.

The most powerful nation on earth, with the eyes of the world fixed upon it, could not get her story straight.

The Trump administration has faced a crisis of credibility since day one. It has peddled lies and misinformation about everything from inauguration crowd sizes to Amy Coney Barrett being a Rhodes Scholar. But nothing could be as consequentially incompetent as providing mixed messages regarding the president’s health while he is hospitalized with a potentially life-threatening illness. And the weight of responsibility does not fall on Trump. It’s not the fault of the White House communications shop or the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany. The blame belongs to Meadows.

Nobody could have predicted, when the chief of staff took over in March, that his own personal track record of unreliability would intersect so serendipitously with the Trump administration’s inability to shoot straight. But it’s not exactly surprising, either. The combination of Trump and Meadows—a pair of known embellishers, two men who fancy themselves expert negotiators but have never sealed a major deal in Washington—struck some people in the capital city as a disaster waiting to happen. When Meadows moved into his new role, one of his former allies in the House Freedom Caucus, a personal friend, told me his biggest concern wasn’t whether Meadows would hold Trump accountable; rather, it was whether anyone in the administration would hold Meadows accountable, reining in his constant freelancing and inflated sense of himself as an operator.

There was ample justification for such concern. Many was the meeting of the House Freedom Caucus from which members walked away uncertain if what Meadows was telling them matched what he was telling reporters in background conversations, or what he was telling House GOP leadership in their private meetings. For his part, Paul Ryan, who clashed repeatedly with the Freedom Caucus during his time as Speaker, developed a unified theory of how to deal with the group. Of its co-leaders, Meadows and Jim Jordan, Ryan believed he could deal with Jordan; strident and hard as the Ohio congressman was, Ryan always felt their communication was straightforward. Meadows, on the other hand, was always up to something, always playing the angles, always dealing in smoke and mirrors.

Meadows earned every inch of this reputation over his seven years in Congress. Whether it was spearheading the doomed effort to defund Obamacare in the House, or forming the House Freedom Caucus, or breaking with his comrades to light the spark that led to Boehner’s eventual resignation, Meadows has a nose for opportunity and a bottomless appetite for fame. (In my book, American Carnage, I wrote that Meadows is the only politician I’ve encountered who stacks up to a real-like version of Frank Underwood, the cunning main character in the show “House of Cards.”)

Once, in 2015, Meadows pulled aside his North Carolina colleague, Mark Walker, on the House floor. A former minister, Walker was new to Congress and eager for guidance. “You voted the wrong way,” Meadows told him about a bill up for consideration. Walker was perplexed; he had sided with Heritage Action, the arch-conservative group. And yet Meadows, a known ringleader of the right, was voting the opposite way. After some persuasion, Walker changed his vote. He later found out that he’d been duped: Meadows had personal reasons to vote against Heritage on the bill, but he didn’t want his colleague earning a better grade on the group’s scorecard, so he made sure Walker earned a demerit with him. Their relationship never recovered.

The best example of Meadows’ expedient worldview draws from his relationship with Trump. Back in 2016, when the reality TV star was closing in on the Republican nomination for president, Meadows told anyone who would listen that Trump constituted a threat not just to the GOP but to America and the Constitution itself. In the weeks leading up to the party convention, he repeatedly declared to his Freedom Caucus colleagues that he might not travel to Cleveland for the affair, despite being a delegate, because he feared living with the legacy of having voted to nominate Trump. Soon after going to Cleveland, however, and taking that vote, he got to know the nominee when Trump visited North Carolina. Before long Meadows was a fixture on the Trump campaign plane; he would often hold up his cell phone around friends to show them when Trump was phoning him.

Just before that 2016 convention, I sat in Meadows’ office on Capitol Hill, talking with him about the Republican Party and its new leader. The congressman was measured in his critiques. He admitted that Trump wasn’t his first choice—or even close to it. But, he added, there was something strangely endearing about the man.

“You know the funny thing? Donald Trump is actually a lot like me,” Meadows said. “He’s going to tell you the truth, whether you like it or not.”

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Vulnerable Republicans seek lifeline from SCOTUS hearings

Amy Coney Barrett will be grilled during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. But four Republican senators may have the most on the line.

The upcoming hearings could give Sens. Thom Tillis, Joni Ernst, John Cornyn and Lindsey Graham a chance to garner national attention in the midst of their competitive races — providing them a significant platform while they are pulled off the campaign trail for official Senate business.

But developments since President Donald Trump and a handful of key GOP senators tested positive for coronavirus also raise questions about how these endangered lawmakers will handle the hearing. Since Friday, Tillis and Sen. Mike Lee — another Judiciary panel member — have tested positive for COVID-19 and will quarantine for 10 days. The Judiciary Committee does not intend to delay the proceedings, which are slated to begin Oct. 12, though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested Saturday that the hearings could be at least partly remote.

With the Senate GOP majority in peril, Republicans view the Supreme Court confirmation fight as an opportunity to energize conservative voters, particularly as Trump lags behind Joe Biden in most national polls and faces criticism for his response to the coronavirus crisis. Unlike previous confirmation hearings, this one is taking place just weeks before Election Day on an uncharacteristically fast timeline. Public polling suggests that the majority of Americans want the Supreme Court seat filled after the election.

Graham, the chair of the Judiciary panel and a close Trump ally, faces an unexpectedly tight race with Democrat Jaime Harrison. While South Carolina is still considered a lean red state, several polls have Graham and Harrison tied. Meanwhile, both Ernst and Tillis are in toss-up races in Iowa and North Carolina that could decide control of the Senate and Cornyn is likely in the most challenging reelection bid of his career in Texas politics.

In an interview, Graham suggested that the hearings could help his closing argument.

"If you ask me what's the most important thing I could be seen as doing in South Carolina? Confirming a Supreme Court justice, a conservative justice,” Graham said. “It doesn't hurt me at all to be doing my day job for something this important.”

Contentious Judiciary panel hearings can lead to viral moments, such as when an enraged Graham accused his Democratic colleagues of “the most unethical sham” he’d seen in politics during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. Graham even mentioned the moment during a debate Saturday night with Harrison, suggesting his opponent’s fundraising was “about liberals hating my guts because I stood up for Kavanaugh.”

Those moments can be risky to incumbents, and Democrats argue they could backfire. Democrats are also raising records amounts of money off the confirmation fight. ActBlue, a digital fundraising platform used by many Democratic candidates, saw tens of millions of dollars in donations after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Barrett's confirmation hearings will likely be widely watched — more than 20 million people tuned into Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing.

So far, Senate Republicans up in 2020 are betting that Democratic opposition to Barrett will inflame tensions on the committee, suggesting that a contentious hearing will help their campaigns.

“I’m not a viral kind of guy but I could see some people going off the rails and alienating some people,” said Tillis (R-N.C.), who faces Democrat Cal Cunningham, a prolific fundraiser.

“The one thing that we saw in the Kavanaugh hearing is how crazy the left gets,” added Cornyn (R-Texas), who is facing Democratic challenger MJ Hegar. “They can’t help themselves. That will help me persuade that they should not be given the power to govern.”

Democrats have universally called for the confirmation to wait until after the election, and reiterated those calls after Lee tested positive for coronavirus. Democrats have pointed to public polling, both nationally and in some contested Senate races, showing that voters think the next president should nominate a justice, and say the high-profile hearings will harm the GOP.

“When [Cornyn] has the spotlight on him, he says things that really show us who he is,” Hegar said in an interview. “When Texans have an opportunity to see who he is, that is not good for his campaign.”

Hegar further cited that Cornyn questioned whether individual police brutality cases constitute systemic racism. Cornyn made the remarks at a Judiciary Committee hearing over the summer in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, prompting Democrats in Texas and nationally to condemn his remarks.

The hearings will also draw attention to Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, who has developed a reputation for tough questioning of Trump nominees. During the most recent Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Harris drew praise from Democrats when she grilled Kavanaugh about special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.

“She is always extraordinarily insightful,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Judiciary Committee. “I think she will do her job without regard to the immediate political consequences.”

But just as Kavanaugh helped Harris, Senate Republicans argued that Kavanaugh’s ugly confirmation fight amid sexual assault allegations against him helped them expand their Senate majority. (Several of the Democratic senators who lost reelection in that cycle were running in red-leaning states.)

Partisan sniping over Barrett’s Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings has already started. Senate Republicans are accusing Democrats of anti-Catholic bias toward Barrett, citing Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the panel, telling the nominee during her 2017 hearing for the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the “dogma lives loudly within you.”

Senate Democrats and Democratic challengers, meanwhile, are focusing their message on health care and the future of Obamacare. They argue that if Barrett is confirmed, the Supreme Court will strike it down. Prior to becoming a federal judge, Barrett criticized Chief Justice John Roberts’ move to uphold the law.

The Judiciary Committee hearings are expected to last three to four days. Graham indicated recently that the committee could vote to advance Barrett’s nomination by October 22, setting up a floor vote just days away from the election.

While the hearings and final vote means incumbents will have less time on the ground to meet with voters, Senate Republicans also note that the coronavirus pandemic has upended traditional campaigning, with many candidates increasingly relying on virtual events.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) acknowledged that the hearings would take up time particularly for senators up in cycle, but views the Supreme Court as a net positive for Cornyn and other members of the Judiciary Committee.

“The voters expect us to do our jobs,” Cruz said. “I have long been a believer that good policy is good politics and that delivering on our promises to the voters. ... Delivering on the core promise of Republican senators to deliver strong constitutionalists I have believed has a tremendously positive impact on the polls.”

But others are less willing to speculate, noting that the Supreme Court fight is just one more controversial issue in a year that’s seen a global pandemic, an economic recession and nationwide protests over racial injustice.

“I listen to all these experts explain how this is going to impact the election, none of them have ever run for office in their life,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). “If they had they would understand this is an unusual political environment and I don’t know anybody who knows the answer to that question.”

James Arkin and Andrew Desiderio contributed to this report.

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4 winners and 2 losers from Saturday Night Live’s season premiere

Will Heath/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Jim Carrey debuted as Joe Biden, Alec Baldwin is (still) over playing Trump, Chris Rock nailed it, and we hope everyone stays healthy.

Saturday Night Live made the bold decision to return to studio 8H this fall, following a truncated season that saw the cast sequestered in their individual homes. Those episodes provided some of the freshest sketches SNL has aired in years, indulging its performers’ more absurd, even experimental comedic talents.

Going back to the studio didn’t necessarily mean going back to “normal” for SNL, however: There’s still the issue of Covid-19, its impact on film production, and its continued toll on the society that SNL comments on. Masks are commonplace; social distancing is the norm; more than 1 million people worldwide have died. As of this Friday, right before the season premiere, even President Donald Trump has contracted the illness.

Not only did the season premiere suggest that the cast and crew took an abundance of caution in putting on a show, it also elegantly commented on or winked at the heaps of news events that have dominated the United States over the past month. Everyone from the onstage band members to the studio audience (composed of first responders) wore masks, as did the cast at the end of the show. And non Covid-related events, like the mid-September death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, received heartfelt, considerate shoutouts. (Kate McKinnon ostensibly retired her RBG impression with a brief appearance at the end of Weekend Update, followed by a “rest in power” title card.)

All of this is to say that the show felt satisfyingly normal in the face of abnormality. SNL is an adaptable creature, even if it is not always a deeply considered one (see: the episode’s first sketch, which was just a bunch of jokes about silly- and raunchy-sounding names like Edith Puthie and Irma Gerd). The season premiere had its good and its bad, but its successes — to our pleasant surprise — mostly outweighed any missteps.

Winner: Jim Carrey as Joe Biden

Saturday Night Live has had a few different cast members play Joe Biden in the past, but none has quite stuck. Biden’s persona is not as immediately defined as Barack Obama’s or Donald Trump’s, which may be why he’s been a bit of a challenge. Instead of asking someone like Jason Sudeikis to come back and reprise the role, SNL went with a much bigger name to take a stab at a Biden impression: Jim Carrey.

This may seem like an odd choice to some viewers, considering that Carrey is both one of Hollywood’s greatest hams and Canadian. But Carrey walked on stage all lanky and finger-guns ablaze, his teeth as shiny as the real Biden’s. He exuded the same kind of intrinsic chill that Biden often does, the sense of coolness that was a large part of his persona during his Vice Presidential years.

There he is. #SNLPremiere pic.twitter.com/Mfm7tBBcKh

— Saturday Night Live - SNL (@nbcsnl) October 4, 2020

The show’s cold open pitted Alec Baldwin’s Trump against Carrey’s Biden in a “replay” of the chaotic presidential debate that aired this past week. But where Carrey truly shined was toward the end of the sketch, when his Biden pressed “pause” on Trump and really took the time to speak his mind. “This November, please get on the Biden train, which is literally a commuter train to Delaware,” said a calm Carrey, a frozen Baldwin-Trump beside him. “And we can all make America not actively on fire again.” — Allegra Frank

Loser: Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump

Spare at least half a thought for poor Alec Baldwin, who never in his wildest dreams thought he’d be stuck playing Donald Trump this long, and who will forever be identified with a person he clearly loathes for many reasons. (Though he’s also definitely making bank, and could have handed the role over to anyone in the cast by now, so only half a thought is necessary.) Baldwin’s Trump has at times verged on being more exhausting than Trump himself, and this season opener was no exception. Playing Trump at the first presidential debate, he had to shoehorn in a foreshadowing of the diagnosis to come just a day or two after the debate, and it just was not fun to watch.

His puckered visage remains recognizably Trumpian and he’s certainly nailed the tone of voice, the air of entitled disdain, and the bronzer. (What was up with that wig, though? Is it getting whiter?) But there’s nothing about Baldwin’s Trump that gives any insight into the man or does much of anything interesting. At this point, he’s a stand-in, a foil for Jim Carrey’s Biden, sort of a charisma-free hand puppet that fills up space on screen. I don’t think he thinks he’s doing anything else, to be fair. But nobody may hope harder for a Trump loss in November than Alec Baldwin right now. — Alissa Wilkinson

Winner: Chris Rock

I heaved a big ol’ sigh of relief when I remembered Chris Rock was hosting; if anyone wasn’t going to get pushed into doing a non-political monologue for the sake of “civility,” it’s him. And on the whole, he delivered. Rock’s hosting was tight, and he only appeared in a few sketches — not surprising, since a number of them were pre-taped — but he was exactly the face SNL needed to kick off the new season.

And his monologue was what the situation called for. He could have thrown up his hands and rattled off a “this week, amirite?”-style monologue. He could have just lobbed a bunch of grenades toward the president, who has not, shall we say, had a good week. He could have nodded to the news and then talked about the challenges of making a show under Covid-19 protocols.

But instead, Rock took the opportunity to talk, albeit briefly and vaguely, about the system being broken. “I think Joe Biden should be the last president ever,” he declared. “We need a whole new system.” He touched on term limits for Congress, voter suppression, and requiring presidential candidates to clear a higher bar than being over age 35 and born in the US. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was something, and he concluded by quoting James Baldwin: “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.” — AW

Winner: Megan Thee Stallion

Megan Thee Stallion’s summer was a mixed-bag. Sure, she had huge hits in her remix of “Savage” featuring Beyonce and “WAP” with Cardi B. But she also suffered gunshot wounds allegedly at the hands of another rapper, Tory Lanez. (Megan was only lightly injured, thankfully.)

Megan seemed like she’d moved beyond that ordeal during her SNL performances, however. She performed twice, and she also appeared in two separate sketches. One was a pre-taped song in which Pete Davidson, Chris Redd, and Kenan Thompson asked women what was under their masks — how do we know that they’re totally hot if everything from the nose bridge-down is covered? Megan appeared to reinforce that, well, some things are better left discovered in the bedroom. Later, she took part in a sketch about an NBA Draft for participation in the “bubble,” the training space the league has set up for several teams so that they may quarantine without losing practice time. Megan played a flirtatious basketball girlfriend with aplomb; the 25-year-old’s got several talents, it seems.

But where Megan really stood out was in her musical performances. Her first song was the “Savage” remix, using Beyonce’s vocals to allow Megan and her dancers to show off more choreo. Megan is an excellent stage presence, with slow and sexy moves demanding attention during this TikTok-favorite jam. And once our eyes were locked on her, she pivoted to show that her fabulously black-and-white inkblot set actually read “Protect Black Women” — which she then implored all viewers to do. Using this moment to promote the power of Black Lives Matter and speak out against violence toward Black women felt powerful and appropriate: SNL truly has a lot of catching up to do after a heavy summer, after all. — AF

Winner: Kenan Thompson

I love Kenan Thompson. He just makes me happy. The man is starting his 18th season on Saturday Night Live and yet he still shows up and seems to bring his all, no matter how he may be feeling about the whole situation privately. For his many What Up With That sketches alone, which I watch whenever I’m having a particularly terrible day, he has my eternal gratitude.

He’s now the longest-running member of the cast, which means he is becoming an institution in his own right. And in the season premiere, the show paid him homage in the “Future Ghost” sketch, in which Mikey Day circa 2000 sees into his future (in 2020, he’s become Beck Bennett) and discovers that he’ll still be playing Tony Hawk in his mom’s basement. But the twist is that his mom has married Kenan Thompson, and he’s on a show called “My Mom Married Kenan Thompson.”

That’s it. That’s the joke. And somehow it’s a very funny punchline. Someday, Thompson will actually leave SNL, but for now, it’s really nice that he’s around. — AW

Loser: Donald Trump

We’ve come a long way from 2015, baby, when Donald Trump himself — then a presidential hopeful who’d only months earlier completed the 14th season of his reality show on the same TV network as SNL — hosted the show. At the time it was seen by many as a massive miscalculation on SNL’s part, a way of legitimizing someone who was not as much of a joke as the bigwigs at SNL presumably thought he was. Members of the cast have talked about it since then, both on and off the air. For many, it will forever be a stain on the show’s history, a mark of how unserious and ill-equipped for this era it is.

But this weekend, if Trump was watching, he was watching from a (presumably very cushy) bed at Walter Reed Medical Center, and it’s unlikely he was happy with what he saw. Baldwin’s impression of him is listless and annoying, especially next to Carrey’s kinetic Biden. He was the butt of a raft of jokes, some funnier than others, fired off by Colin Jost and Michael Che during Weekend Update. (“I wish him a very lengthy recovery,” Che said with a smirk.) And Chris Rock needled him throughout his monologue — “Like, Donald Trump left a game show to run for president because it was easier” — and concluded by essentially deeming him irrelevant. It’s been four very long seasons of SNL since Trump was elected, and five since he last showed up in person on the show, and by now he’s not even a good punch line. — AW

Jury’s Still Out: Covid-19 precautions

How exactly do you make Saturday Night Live right now? Especially in New York City, where legal restrictions are so fierce that restaurants only opened indoor dining this week at 25 percent, movie theaters are still closed, and comedy clubs and indoor performance venues are not allowed to open?

In interviews, SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels has hinted at some it, although the show is obviously making things up on the fly. The audience for the premiere, made up of first responders, was notably smaller and masked (though seated in non-distanced clumps around the studio). The traditional between-sketch shots showed the crew in masks and face shields, scurrying around as usual to prepare sets but also disinfecting them. Plexiglass separated the band members from one another, allowing them to sit in their usual perch on the stage. More sketches were pre-recorded than usual; at one point I wondered if the whole cast was even there, though they came out, wearing masks, at the end of the show. Even the opening credits — still shot all around New York City, as always — featured a number of the cast members sporting masks, clearly signalling to the audience that this is the new normal, and it’s okay, we’ll deal with it.

Was the whole thing ... legal? Presumably the answer is yes, but I still wondered how SNL got around some restrictions. And more importantly: Was it safe? There’s no such thing as a risk-free activity these days, but you still have to wonder. Even masked in the studio audience, you’re still inside, with performers removing masks for sketches or for musical numbers. Yes, presumably the air flow has been checked and double-checked, and experts have been consulted, and people have been tested for Covid-19, and everyone’s just doing the best they can. Nobody wants an episode of SNL to become a super-spreader event.

But it seems impossible to say whether the precautions worked, for now. This season premiere was a good faith effort to make live entertainment feel as normal as possible, and that’s pretty much all you can ask from a show like Saturday Night Live. Still, I think I won’t be the only one crossing my fingers for everyone in that room for a few weeks. — AW

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Megan Thee Stallion makes a statement during her solo SNL debut

Megan danced in front of a backdrop that read ‘Protect Black Women’

On Saturday night, Megan Thee Stallion made her Saturday Night Live solo debut. The show was hosted by Chris Rock and featured a number of sketches pertaining to the presidential debate, the coronavirus pandemic and President Donald Trump‘s recent diagnosis.

But the most powerful moment of the night came from Megan. Her first performance was her song “Savage Remix” featuring Beyoncé.

Megan and her back up dancers wore bold, black and white zebra print outfits and danced in front of a backdrop that read “Protect Black Women.”

Read More: Jim Carrey, Maya Rudolph preview their Biden-Harris characters in SNL promo

In the middle of her song, Megan stopped and gunshots rang out. The voice of Malcom X then narrated some of his most famous words.

“The most disrespected, unprotected, neglected person in America is the Black woman. Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair, the color of your skin, the shape of your nose? Who taught you to hate yourself, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet?”

The voice of Tamika Mallory, activist and cofounder of the Women’s March then rang out. “Daniel Cameron is no different than the sellout negroes that sold our people into slavery.”

kentucky’s attorney general getting called out on @nbcsnl hopefully will remind people that we more than ever need #justiceforbreonnataylor (words @tamikadmallory: https://t.co/8dxcbVLaUf) pic.twitter.com/ffdR23Ea3l

— Sarah Baird (@scbaird) October 4, 2020

The stage then began to turn red and Megan said “We have to protect out Black women and love our Black women, because at the end of the day, we need our Black women. We need to protect out Black men and stand up for our Black men because at the end of the day, we tired of seeing hashtags of our Black men.”

Read More: Jim Carrey, Maya Rudolph preview their Biden-Harris characters in SNL promo

Megan returned later on for a second, lighter performance to close out the show. Joined by Young Thug, the two artists performed their new song “Don’t Stop,” which was released on Friday.

Megan was also featured in a few sketches. One of the most memorable was a music video about wearing masks while dating during the pandemic.

Megan performed on SNL in 2019 as a guest of Chance the Rapper. The two performed of their song “Handsome.”

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Graham, Harrison spar over SCOTUS and Covid-19 in fiery Senate debate

Jaime Harrison and Lindsey Graham have been battling it out over the airwaves for months. On Saturday night, as the surprisingly competitive South Carolina Senate race has reached a fever pitch, they finally met face-to-face on the debate stage.

Harrison accused Graham of flip flopping on his word and breaking the trust of his voters. Graham, the three-term GOP incumbent, warned South Carolinians they wouldn’t recognize their country if Democrats took control in Washington.

Those two arguments took center stage in a fiery debate held one month before Election Day. The two disagreed on Covid-19 response, the upcoming Supreme Court confirmation fight Graham will head, and police reform, among a host of other issues — including the flood of TV ads unleashed on the state, thanks to Harrison’s prodigious fundraising and the late involvement of super PACs from both parties in a race that is unexpectedly competitive.

That South Carolina is being actively contested this close to the election is an alarm bell for Republicans about the state of their majority, as they are forced to defend a deep-red state that was not expected to be up for grabs while Democrats fight to flip the chamber.

Graham leaned heavily on his role as Judiciary Committee chairman in the upcoming confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court. He promised the process would move forward, even as two members of the Judiciary Committee who met with Barrett this week tested positive for Covid-19, forcing the Senate to alter its schedule for the next two weeks.

“The one thing I want people to know is that the virus is serious, but we have to move on as a nation,” Graham said early in the debate. “When a military member gets infected, you don't shut down the whole unit. We're going to have a hearing for Amy Barrett, the nominee to the Supreme Court. It will be done safely — but I've got a job to do, and I'm pressing on."

Harrison criticized Graham for pressing ahead given the infections — he stood with a plexiglass divider beside his lectern to separate from Graham, who tested negative for the virus earlier this week. Harrison said he did not blame Trump for the inception of the virus but blamed the administration and Congress for an inadequate response to it.

He also questioned Graham’s word to voters in the state, pointing out that the Republican senator had previously said he would not move forward on a Supreme Court nomination in the final year of Trump’s term but is doing so now.

“I think the greatest heresy that you can do as a public servant is to betray the trust of the people that you took an oath to serve. And that's what you've done,” Harrison said. “Just be a man of it and stand up and say, ‘You know what, I changed my mind. I'm going to do something else.’ But don't go back and blame it on somebody else for a flip flop that you're making yourself."

Graham responded that Barrett would be confirmed because Trump and Republican senators have a constitutional right to move forward.

The debate was held at Allen University in Columbia, S.C., and was produced by WIS-TV. It aired on affiliates in a number of other South Carolina markets as well: Greenville, Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Savannah, Ga., and Augusta, Ga. It also aired nationally on C-SPAN.

The two also clashed repeatedly over a host of other issues, including schools reopening during the pandemic, health care coverage and police brutality and the question of systemic racism in policing. Graham continually aimed to tie Harrison to the most liberal elements of the Democratic Party, but also said he had the “political scars” to prove his bipartisanship, referencing his poor reputation among conservatives in past elections where he faced primary challenges.

Harrison pushed back on the attacks linking him to more liberal elements in his party, saying clearly that he did not support defunding police and accused Graham of misleading viewers. Harrison, however, didn’t discuss his party or potential control of the chamber, but kept his focus in the debate squarely on Graham’s record in Washington and argued he had not delivered for the state.

Graham, during a question about negative ads that had been run in the race, took a chance to bring up Harrison’s historically strong fundraising. Total TV ad spending has already reached $40 million — and while Harrison’s campaign has not said how much he’s raised since the midpoint of this year, Graham suggested Saturday his opponent could end up bringing in roughly $100 million for the cycle.

"Where the hell is all this money coming from...?" Graham said. "They hate me. This is not about Mr. Harrison. This is about liberals hating my guts because I stood up for [now-Supreme Court Justice Brett] Kavanaugh when they tried to destroy his life. This is about me helping Donald Trump.”

The financial gap may only keep on growing. A spokesperson for Harrison’s campaign said it raised at least $340,000 from the time the debate began, through an hour after it concluded.

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