SNL takes a jab at Betsy DeVos during a mock Sean Spicer press conference
It was inevitable. The unprecedented controversy surrounding Betsy DeVos, President Trump’s nominee for education secretary, gave “Saturday Night Live” a new target — and Kate McKinnon, who had previously played Hillary Clinton and Kellyanne Conway, got the role.
“DeVos” appeared on the Feb. 4 show during a mock press conference by White House press secretary Sean Spicer, played by Melissa McCarthy.
At one point during the press conference, Spicer brings out “DeVos,” saying, “I’ve been getting a lot of questions about Betsy DeVos” — mispronouncing her last name — “so we have her here to field some simple questions, which I’m sure she’s capable of doing.”
A “reporter” asked her this: “How do you value growth versus proficiency in measuring progress in students?”
That may sound technical, but it is actually a fundamental question in the world of education and has been for years. During the real DeVos’s Senate confirmation hearing on Jan. 17, the real Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) — who was an SNL player before he was a senator — asked her about it, and she looked at him with something resembling a blank stare. He said: “It surprises me that you don’t know this issue.” And then he said, “No, it doesn’t” surprise him.
That was a reference to the nominee’s inability to speak knowledgeably about a number of important education issues. Her confirmation-hearing performance, not to mention the facts that she never attended a public school, never sent her children to one and has called the SNL takes a jab at Betsy DeVos during a mock Sean Spicer press conference - The Washington Post: