When you think of great diplomats, some names might immediately come to mind: Benjamin Franklin, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, and, of course, Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar.
If you're puzzled by those last two, former Republican President Donald Trump revealed in his Monday livestreamed interview with X owner Elon Musk that he adopted their distinctive style for diplomatic discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Wayne and Garth are characters from a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch featuring Mike Myers and Dana Carvey respectively as a pair of heavy metal fans who broadcast the public-access television show Wayne's World. The sketch later spawned two films of the same name.
The banter between the two headbangers included Garth saying "No way," to which Wayne would always reply "Way!"
Trump claimed he employed the same distinctive banter with Putin.
Trump told Musk about his discussion with the Russian authoritarian regarding Putin's invasion of Ukraine:
"I said: ‘Don’t do it. You can’t do it, Vladimir. You do it, it’s going to be a bad day. You cannot do it'."
"I told him things that, what I’d do, and he said, ‘No way,’ and I said, ‘Way!’."
You can hear the moment from Trump’s phone interview here:
Myers said the sketch was inspired in part by his adolescence in Canada in the late 70s and early 80s.
Apparently Trump is a fan of SNL and/or the Wayne's World films—a fact people quickly picked up on.
Outside of fans of the comedic duo mimicking sketches, their catchphrases never were actually part of young adult or teen vernacular.
Trump’s use of it comes off as awkward as the "Steve Buscemi pretending to be a teenager" meme from 30 Rock.
If the aim of relaying the story to Musk was to increase Trump’s coolness quotient, it was a fail.
The 2024 GOP presidential candidate was soundly mocked across social media platforms.
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Although the Trump-Musk interview did spawn a sketch idea for the folks at Saturday Night Live.
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We're seeing an SNL cold open in the near future...
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