SNL star Pete Davidson mocks Staten Island coronavirus lockdown protests
The Hill columnist Joe Concha reacts on ‘America’s Newsroom.’
Fox News contributor Joe Concha pointed out the “irony” Monday of “Saturday Night Live” cast member and Staten Island native Pete Davidson mocking the owner of Mac’s Public House, who has defied Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s coronavirus restrictions by staying open.
“Pete Davidson is a millionaire," the Hill media columnist told “America’s Newsroom” Monday. "It’s easy for him to mock those who are struggling to put food on the table,”
Demonstrators gathered outside the bar last week to protest Cuomo’s coronavirus restrictions after the bar found itself in legal trouble for violating them. The tavern is in an area designated by Cuomo as an “orange zone” because of spiking COVID-19 rates and was not supposed to be serving customers indoors.
On Saturday, Davidson appeared on “Weekend Update” to talk about the viral protest in his home borough and the bar owner’s refusal to only allow outdoor service.
STATEN ISLAND BAR OWNER'S ATTORNEY ADDRESSES PETE DAVIDSON MOCKING PROTESTERS ON 'SNL'
“The owner said no one wants to do that 'cause they’ll go out of business," Davidson joked. "But the argument that people in Staten Island don’t want to drink outside can be disproven by going to literally any Little League game."
Davidson added that because of the protest, he's “no longer the first thing people think of when they say, ‘What’s the worst thing about Staten Island?’”
“Pete Davidson made that joke, did that mockery before a live studio audience at 30 Rockefeller Center, [an] indoor studio audience,” Concha noted. “‘Saturday Night Live’ gets around New York’s COVID restrictions by paying its audience members $150 each so they can call them employees and therefore they’re allowed to go and watch this.”
Concha was referencing a report from The New York Times that "Saturday Night Live" paid audience members $150 each to attend its season premiere in an effort to comply with New York City coronavirus guidelines.
Concha noted that the show has been filming indoors in New York City even as Broadway theaters are scheduled to remain shuttered until at least the end of May 2021.
“Emmy winner Gov. Cuomo allows this to happen because he’s a hypocrite and because the show now basically serves at the pleasure of his party,” he continued.
On Monday, Mac's Public House owner Keith McAlarney was joined by his attorney, Lou Gelormino, and community activist John Tabacco for a press conference where they addressed Davidson’s sketch and spoke out against his recent jokes on “Saturday Night Live.”
“I kind of almost feel like the ignorance level is so high now that you have mega-millionaires in the national spotlight, like the folks on ‘Saturday Night Live,’ and instead of making fun of their friends and the local business owners who are broke and crushed and bankrupt, instead of coming down here as fellow Staten Islanders and standing up for them and bringing a positive light to this thing, what they want to do is go on national TV and try to humiliate the little man when he’s down, and to me that’s quite disgusting,” Tabacco said.
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Concha noted on Monday that co-owner Danny Presti had told reporters that business owners and staff have been “trying to figure out how they're coming up with rent this month and how to get their kids Christmas gifts."
“Meanwhile you have Pete Davidson who mocked Congressman Dan Crenshaw over his eye patch, the eye patch that he wears because his eye got blown off in Afghanistan by an IED [an improvised explosive device] so what else would you expect from a Pete Davidson at this point?” Concha asked.
An NBC Entertainment Publicity spokesperson did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.
Fox News’ Tyler McCarthy contributed to this report.
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