Donald Trump was called a racist on live television on Saturday — and it was all part of the script.
After the Republican presidential candidate was controversially chosen by NBC to host Saturday Night Live, a political action committee (PAC) offered up a $5,000 “bounty” to anyone who would disrupt the broadcast by shouting “Trump is a racist.”
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Trump was nearing the end of his monologue when a heckler could be heard off-screen cashing in on the offer by yelling “You’re a racist!” The offender turned out to be comedian Larry David, who has appeared on the show impersonating Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
“Larry, what are you doing?” Trump asked with mock exasperation.
“I heard if I yelled that, they’d give me $5,000,” David replied.
“As a businessman, I can fully respect that,” Trump said, delivering the punchline.
The cash reward was offered by the PAC DeportRacism.com. Luke Montgomery, who recently directed a viral video for the group that featured several Latino children calling Trump a “racist dick” and other insults, told VICE News on Sunday that David could claim the cash, and that the evening was a success overall for the PAC.
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“Larry David just became $5,000 richer,” Montgomery said. “The victory here is that someone called Trump a racist on live television, and that gets the message out there and it gets people thinking.”
Hours before the show, Latino groups took the streets outside NBC’s studios in Midtown Manhattan. Around 200 protesters marched from Trump Tower carrying signs with phrases like “#RacismIsntFunny,” and “Dump Trump.”
“He shouldn’t have been on SNL in the first place, but we think this was amazing, and it has drawn so much attention to our cause,” Montgomery said.
Trump, who hosted the show once before in 2004, spent the evening satirizing his imaginary presidency, but steered clear of jokes about his hardline views on immigration. He live-tweeted one segment because he was “too tired to rehearse,” playfully taking aim at the show’s cast members for being “losers” — a reference to his penchant for slamming rivals. In another sketch, his daughter Ivanka Trump posed as a member of his cabinet and said the Washington Monument had been covered in gold-mirrored glass, mocking Trump’s opulent taste.
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The campaign to interrupt Trump’s appearance on the show came in response to previous comments by the candidate in which he called Mexicans “rapists” and accused immigrants of bringing crime and drugs into the US. Montgomery said DeportRacism.com now plans to offer another $5,000 bounty to anyone who stands up at the next GOP debate and calls Trump a racist. He also said the group would produce more videos calling out the potential GOP nominee for his anti-immigrant platform.
“Trump told Fox Business News that our video was terrible and a disgrace, so we’re going to reward him with two more,” Montgomery said. “Thanks Donald Trump, for your feedback — we’re making sequels. Larry David’s ‘heckling’ of Trump last night only encouraged us to offer this bounty up in the future.”
Follow Atoosa Moinzadeh on Twitter: @amoinzadeh
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story described DeportRacism.com as a Latino group. It is PAC that describes itself as being “dedicated to fighting anti-Latino and anti-immigrant racism in the 2016 election.”
