Matt Damon Brings Back Brett Kavanaugh in SNL Cold Open, Mocking Court’s Assault on Voting Rights

Matt Damon returned to Saturday Night Live’s cold open to revive his infamous portrayal of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, delivering a biting satire of the judge’s role in the Trump-era judiciary’s assault on democracy. Damon’s Kavanaugh was no longer the angry, defensive figure from 2018 but a gleeful insider celebrating the Court’s April 6 decision that eviscerated key protections of the Voting Rights Act.

In the sketch, Kavanaugh hung out at a bar with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, played by Colin Jost, trading jokes about their shared reputations for heavy drinking—an allusion to the real-life confirmation hearings where both men faced scrutiny over their alcohol use. Kavanaugh’s gleeful boasting about the Court’s 6-3 ruling was punctuated by a parody drawing of a Tennessee congressional map, mocking the state Republicans’ blatant gerrymandering that the ruling effectively greenlit.

Damon’s Kavanaugh joked that the drawing was actually a failed field sobriety test, underscoring the absurdity of the Court’s partisan overreach and the questionable character of its justices. The sketch spotlighted how the Supreme Court has become a tool for entrenched power, dismantling voting rights protections that have long safeguarded minorities from racial gerrymandering.

Aziz Ansari also returned as FBI Director Kash Patel, lampooning the former Trump loyalist’s bizarre antics. Ansari’s Patel proudly showed off a bottle of Woodford Reserve bourbon engraved with “Kash Patel FBI Director,” referencing a report that Patel travels with personalized whiskey bottles—a surreal symbol of the politicization and self-aggrandizement within federal law enforcement under Trump.

This SNL cold open cuts through the noise with sharp humor to expose how the highest courts and federal agencies have been weaponized by Trump loyalists to undermine democratic norms, reward cronyism, and celebrate their own excesses. Damon and Ansari’s performances remind us that these abuses of power are not just policy failures but a corrosive culture that threatens the rule of law itself.