Dave Chappelle says Trump's 2016 election win "shut the writers’ room down" at SNL as they burst out in tears 

Dave Chappelle is reflecting on the moment he and the writers at NBC's Saturday Night Live learned of President Trump's election win in 2016.

The comedian sat down for a conversation with fellow comedian Mo Amer for Variety's Actors on Actors, where they reflected on Chappelle hosting SNL in the week after Trump emerged victorious.

"Man, when they called Donald Trump the winner, that s--- shut the writers’ room down. You should have seen them in there," Chappelle said. "Boy, they was crying… They couldn’t believe that this was happening."

Amer said he "knew the whole time" that Trump would win.

"Yeah, because you live in Texas and I live in Ohio, but at 30 Rock, it looked like Hillary Clinton was going to win. I don’t know what looks different from those windows," Chappelle said. "But yeah, man, it surprised me."

Dave Chappelle says he "cringes" when he thinks about himself once saying give President Trump a chance: Read more

During his conversation with Amer, Dave Chappelle also reflected on his 2016 monologue on the long-running series, where he said he'd “give Trump a chance." In hindsight, he thinks his sentiments may not have “aged well.”

“I remember it fondly,” he said to Amer. “That’s what it felt like in that moment. Now, if it ages well or not, I don’t get mad if I look at a picture because it’s not today. That’s what it was at that time. You might look at an old set and cringe, but you could just cringe because of how you were at that time.”

Dave Chappelle hosted the first SNL episode after Trump was announced as president, and he said in his lengthy monologue at the time:

“America’s done it. We’ve actually elected an internet troll as our president."

Toward the end, he added,

“I’m wishing Donald Trump luck, and I’m going to give him a chance. And we, the historically disenfranchised, demand that he give us one, too.”

Dave Chappelle went back on his words months later, when he sat down for an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

“It’s not like I wanted to give him a chance that night,” he told Colbert. "Trump’s a polarizing dude," he added. “He’s like a bad DJ at a good party. A lot of white Americans finally got a chance to see what an Election Night looks like for many black Americans every cycle,” he went on.

While he may cringe at the thought of his monologue, Dave Chappelle says it wasn't the “hardest” one he delivered.

“The hardest one was maybe the one when Biden got elected, because we didn’t know he was going to be president until Saturday morning. So I had a set for if Trump won, and I had a set for if Biden won,” Chappelle said, acknowledging the “pressure on live television.” He added, “You never do as good as you think you’re going to do, but it’s never that bad.”

Notably, just this January, Dave Chappelle delivered what was the longest monologue in SNL history, and a pointed message to President Trump. Ahead of his inauguration, he called for empathy and compassion in his 17-minute monologue as the nation was preparing for a new chapter:

“Remember, whether people voted for you or not, they’re all counting on you. Whether they like you or not, they’re all counting on you. The whole world is counting on you,” said Chappelle. “I mean this when I say this — good luck. Please do better next time. Please, all of us do better next time. Do not forget your humanity, and please have empathy for displaced people, whether they’re in the Palisades or Palestine.”

During his segment, Dave Chappelle touched on an array of topics, including the California wildfires, as well as his appreciation for President Jimmy Carter’s stance on Palestine. He recounted his trip to the Middle East shortly after he backed off his The Chappelle Show, pointing out that it was just around the time Carter published Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.

“While I was there, Jimmy Carter said, ‘I want to go to the Palestinian territory,’ and the Israeli government said, ‘It’s too dangerous, and if you go, we cannot protect you.’ And man, Jimmy Carter went anyway,” Chappelle said. “I will never forget the images of a former American president walking with little to no security while thousands of Palestinians were cheering him on.”

He recalled feeling emotional when he saw the photos, adding,

“I said, ‘I don’t know if that’s a good president, but that right there, I am sure, is a great man.’”

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