Kate McKinnon was back as U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos last night on Saturday Night Live (SNL)‘s “Weekend Update.” In the segment, DeVos is appearing on Update to explain her disastrous and embarrassing performance on 60 Minutes, in which she said things like, “I have not intentionally visited schools that are underperforming” or “all of this issue comes down to individual kids” while repeatedly demonstrating her ignorance about school performance in her home state of Michigan.
“So, Betsy,” co-host Colin Jost asks, “what happened in that interview?”
“Well, I – I think the problem is that the words that were coming out of my mouth were bad,” McKinnon’s DeVos says. “And that is because they came from my brain.”
Jost then offers to give her “another chance” to redeem herself, and he asks her some basic questions: “What are your thoughts about public schools versus charter schools?”
“I don’t like to think of things in terms of ‘school.’ It should be up the states.”
“You might now be the most-protested member of Trump’s Cabinet. Why do you think that is?”
“Y’know, I think it’s because I do not do a good job—and I can’t, because I don’t know how.”
“Recently, people have also been criticizing your position on guns in schools.”
“Again, I think the states should choose how they protect their schools … Good schools, good choice. So whatever they choose, we are working hard to ensure that all schools are safe learning environments for guns.”
The best/worst part of this sketch is how realistic some of these answers feel. I would be 0% surprised to find that DeVos actually had said, “I don’t like to think of things in terms of ‘school'” or “good schools, good choice” in the course of her confirmation hearing or subsequent interviews.
But the best line of the sketch had to be DeVos’s closing:Â “Look, I may not be very good on camera. But behind the scenes, my ideas are much worse.”
Too real, SNL. Too real.
(Featured image: screengrab)
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