Katy Tur… Chloe Fineman
William Hamilton… Kenan Thompson
Balloon… Bowen Yang
[Starts with show intro] [Cut to Katy in her news set] [cheers and applause]Katy: Good evening. It’s good to be with you. I’m Katy Tur, and tonight Our long national nightmare is over. We got the balloon. The discovery of the massive surveillance balloon earlier this week inflammed already volatile US-Chinese relations and had many on the right calling the Biden administration’s response soft, including this tweet from Donald Trump Jr. saying, “If my dad was president, there would be no balloons!!!!” And this one from Marjorie Taylor Greene saying, “Look, it’s the real moon.” For more details, I’m honored to be joined tonight by Pentagon official and aviation expert General William Hamilton.
William: Thank you for having me.
Katy: Congratulations general, on your successful mission.
William: Thank you. We popped the balloon.
Katy: General, we’ve never seen an object like this gain entry into our airspace before. How did that happen?
William: That’s an excellent question, Katy. The balloon was somehow able to get past our West Coast anti balloon defense system, the Seattle Space Needle. But once it was here, we were able to keep an eye on it with our sophisticated tracking technology of going like this. [looks above]
Katy: Understood.
William: I know there were questions about why we didn’t shoot it down immediately. But we wanted to wait till it was over the coast so that it wouldn’t fall on people or go shoos-shoo-shoo-shoo and land on my car.
Katy: It looked like it was a very exciting operation. Can you take us through it?
William: Well, I did bring a 3d rendering of the enemy target. [pulls out a small balloon toy out of his pocket] Now, imagine this is a lot bigger, but then pretty far away it looks a lot smaller too.
Katy: Now, that was gathering intel. Was it taking pictures?
William: We don’t know. But I do know if you tap it, it plays music [William taps the small balloon toy. It plays music.]
Katy: Okay, well General, thank you so much for your heroism and for protecting our nation.
William: Thank you, Mrs. Tur. And I want everyone to know that we will not tolerate any form of Chinese spy. But to be honest, they already have everything they need from TikTok. So scroll away, kids.
Katy: Thank you General, and this is exciting. I’m getting word we have located the remains of the balloon and I’m told we have a live feed. Let’s see how it looks.
[Cut to Bowen as a balloon, wearing balloon costume floating on a sea]Balloon: Well, you got me. Congrats, you shot a balloon.
Katy: Wow, balloon. Well, I’m sorry. You’re in the water. But thank you for speaking to us.
Balloon: I entertain new people for four days. And then get shot by Biden? I can’t believe I’m Joe’s O’Sama.
Katy: Now I have to ask What were you doing flying over Montana?
Balloon: I love the show Yellowstone, so I was just there. It’s like succession but outside. Now I’m all wet. So what a day.
Katy: Well, I’m actually surprised you’re still floating. Experts were saying you’re the size of three buses.
Balloon: Okay, ouch. I’m a balloon. So that’s my body. How would you like it if someone measured your width in buses? I’m sorry. I’m not camera ready. And who’s this? [a pigeon flies near] No, no, no, no, no, don’t, get away. God. I hate the ocean. I’m really more of an air guy.
Katy: Look, I’m sorry. But people were worried they were being spied on.
Balloon: By me? A balloon. Everyone’s being surveilled constantly, but it’s always shoot the balloon and never unplug Alexa. If you care so much about your data, why do you all keep your bank passwords in the Notes app? Okay? You mail your literal DNA to a company to find out if you’re 10% French, but just we just a balloon.
Katy: Now the concern was that you were taking sensitive images of the US.
Balloon:I was so far away. It’s like when your aunt takes a concert video on her iPad. And you’re like, I guess that’s my Googoo Bleh. I couldn’t even tell what I was looking at from up there. Like frankly, I thought the state lines would be like drawn out. I thought I would see words over the places
Katy: Well, we just did what we had to do to protect the security of our country.
Balloon: Oh, why is everyone freaking out because I’m a Chinese balloon? Because where I come from, I’m just a balloon.
Katy: Well thanks for speaking with us today and we’re sorry for how everything had to go down.
Balloon: Oh Katy, don’t do that. You’ve made it very clear that I’m not welcome here. So good job. But let me tell you something. You’re gonna miss this Chinese spy balloon, I mean normal balloon. Dammit. Well, whatever. We already have your data. And live from New York it’s Saturday night!