Comedian Dave Chappelle offered an inside look at the Saturday Night Live (SNL) writers’ room after it was revealed that Donald Trump had defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

A funeral would have been more lively.

Chappelle, speaking with fellow comic Mo Amer on Variety magazine’s “Actors on Actors” series, recalled hosting the show on the first Saturday after that historic election. However, he also drew on the reactions of the writers and cast as they prepared during the week.

“Man, when they called Donald Trump the winner – that s*** shut the writers’ room down,” he said, promoting hearty laughter from Amer.

“You should have seen them in there – the first one – boy, they was crying … They couldn’t believe that this was happening.”

(Warning – Language)

Dave Chappelle reveals what the SNL writer’s room looked like when Trump got elected in 2016: “That s**t shut the writers room down.” pic.twitter.com/JwHTe9nyd9

— Variety (@Variety) June 4, 2025

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at the time. The tears. The hugs. It, without a doubt, would have been the funniest thing SNL had produced in years.

They were sitting on comedy gold and didn’t even know it.

Amer said he knew what was coming, but Chappelle admits, like most entertainers at the time living in a bubble, that he never saw the Trump victory as a possibility. That’s what made it so delicious.

“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 joked. “But yeah, man, it surprised me.”