This is the guy whom SNL hired because they thought, supposedly, that he’d connect with conservatives.

Nothing charms Republican viewers in 2019 like Trump assassination material.

Jeryl Bier imagines Lorne Michaels and the SNL producers reading this, thinking, “HIRE HIM BACK.”

“As soon as they decide you’re a bad guy, you’re just alt-right now or something,” Gillis said. “For real, though, I did not vote for Donald Trump,” he added, winking at the audience. “Look at me: I didn’t, but that was tough. His whole campaign was at me. ‘Are you a fat idiot? Yeah, dude, what’re we doing?’

“Trump is funny,” Gillis continued. “He’s funnier than everyone I know. If Trump was the next comic, he’d bury me. He’d come out and be like, ‘Fat. Loser. Fired.'”…

“I don’t want you to think I’m too pro-Trump,” Gillis said. “I will say this: Of all the presidents I’ve been alive for, Trump would definitely be the funniest one to see get shot. Like, without a doubt, that’d be funny. I’m not asking for that; I don’t want that to happen, but it would be funny to see. He’d be on stage talking (expletive), the shooter would be coming at him, and he’d be like, ‘Sit down.’ He’d definitely make a funny noise when he got hit. … It would be funny.”

A little more via Variety from his stand-up set last night in NYC: “I’m from a sh–t hole and then I moved to the city and now all my friends are woke. They’re from Brooklyn. But I still have uncles. They have the internet, so I’ll get online and the first status will be someone from back home like, ‘F–cking Colin Kaepernick better stand up. Like this status if you love the troops and God. Share it if you’re not gay.’” When SNL thought he’d appeal to conservatives, did they come to that conclusion because he … simply knows a few conservatives?

Because in a way I can understand that. What would the over/under be on how many right-wingers the SNL writers’ room is collectively personally acquainted with? Single digits for sure. Five, maybe?

Gillis might have doubled the total in one fell swoop.

A question for anyone out there who’s familiar with his stand-up: Is the Trump assassination material new or has he done it before? I ask because it seems like something he might logically have thrown together after the Variety piece came out yesterday claiming that he was hired at SNL as a sop to right-wingers. Bad enough to lose your dream job a few weeks after landing it, but imagine then being branded as a conservative in an industry that is … not known for its regard for conservatives. He had a professional incentive to make clear in his first set since the firing that he’s not on Team Red. “It’d be funny if Trump got shot” achieves that for him. Even if he has done that joke before, it’s noteworthy that he included it in last night’s material: He only spent 11 minutes onstage and knew that the press would be watching to see what he had to say about SNL. The Trump material made the cut in a big spot.

Hopefully for his sake he’s now sufficiently redeemed that he can be cast in a “King of Queens” reboot or whatever.

He had a couple of good lines last night too, in all fairness. There’s an amusing bit transcribed here in which he compares racism to hunger. And he had a solid one-liner about the backlash to what got him fired, using an Asian slur in a podcast last year: “I’m fine with the consequences – that’s it, I’m not arguing. But I do want everyone to know that I have been reading every one of my death threats in an Asian accent.”