Taran Killam: Lorne Michaels essentially told SNL writers to go easy on Trump, says the show became a “competitive, exhausting environment" after Seth Meyers' departure

Vulture

The Single Parents star says in fall 2015 -- in the months before Donald Trump hosted -- Michaels urged the Saturday Night Live writers to make him likable in parodying the then-presidential candidate. “Lorne was being so specific about what we could and couldn’t say about him, and he was dictating a lot of the settings,” Killam says on Matt Gourley's I Was There Too podcast, according to Vulture. Killam adds: “When Seth Meyers left the show, the dynamic changed quite a bit. He was the last person there who I witnessed really collaborate with Lorne, as opposed to just kind of do what Lorne says." Killam adds that SNL after Meyers had more pretaped sketches and the general vibe of the show was “less of a happy place to be” and more of a “competitive, exhausting environment.”