Pam Bondi reacts to Amy Poehler “SNL” parody

Attorney General Pam Bondi reacted to Amy Poehler’s Saturday Night Live (SNL) parody with a direct message to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Newsweek reached out to Poehler’s representative and the Department of Homeland Security for comment on Monday via email outside regular working hours.

Why It Matters

Political satire on national television—particularly on NBC’s SNL—continues to shape public discourse, and the latest episode, which lampooned Bondi and Noem, drew attention for its comedic send-up of recent Senate testimony and the ongoing government shutdown.

What To Know

The Saturday Night Live opener featured former cast members Poehler and Tina Fey portraying Bondi and Noem, respectively.

Bondi reacted to the parody in a comment via X on Sunday with more than 4.1 million views and 39,000 likes: “.⁦@Sec_Noem⁩, should we recreate this picture in Chicago? Loving Amy Poehler!”

The sketch focused on Bondi’s recent Senate Judiciary Committee testimony, with Poehler’s character refusing to answer questions, quipping: “My name is Pam Bondi. I spell it with an ‘i,’ because I ain’t gonna answer any of your questions. My time is valuable. The DOJ has many ongoing operations, and we’re moving like Kash Patel’s eyeballs—very quickly in multiple directions at once.”

Minutes later, Fey’s Noem entered wielding an AR-15-style rifle, humorously touting her “recruitment ad” for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and commenting: “I’m the rarest type of person in Washington D.C., a brunette that Donald Trump listens to.”

At one point, Fey’s Noem joked: “Democrats wanting the shutdown over makes me laugh more than the end of Old Yeller. … Dogs don’t just get shot—heroes shoot them.”

The line referenced Noem’s 2024 biography No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, in which she described killing her 14-month-old dog, Cricket, with a gun after deeming him “untrainable” because he attacked a family’s chickens and later “whipped around to bite me.” In the 1957 film Old Yeller, the dog gets shot by his owner after contracting rabies.

What People Are Saying

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement to Entertainment Weekly: “SNL is absolutely right—the Democrats’ shutdown does need to end!”

Earlier this month, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson spoke out about the comedy show saying, per Fox News: “Reacting to this would require me to waste my time watching it. And like the millions of Americans who have tuned out from SNL, I have more entertaining things to do—like watch paint dry.”

What Happens Next

Future SNL episodes may revisit these caricatures if the shutdown or related controversies persist.

Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC and the next day on Peacock.