It’s not as reliable a metric as, say, the Dow Jones industrial average, but one sign that the U.S. economy is in an unusual place is when “Saturday Night Live” needs someone from its cast to play the secretary of commerce.

In the opening sketch of this weekend’s broadcast (hosted by Jack Black and featuring the musical guests Elton John and Brandi Carlile) the brief part of Howard Lutnick went to Andrew Dismukes. But center stage was given to James Austin Johnson in his recurring role as President Trump — this time, recreating the speech from the Rose Garden where Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on Wednesday. (An introductory “S.N.L.” voice-over declared that, “like everything else so far in his presidency, it was a total home run.”)

In his version of the speech, Johnson called “tariff” his favorite word (because it was “short for tariff-ic idea”) and said that tariffs would be the backbone of his “incredible plan” for the economy.

Johnson added, “It’s actually even better than a plan because it’s a series of random numbers. Like the numbers on the computer screen in ‘Severance.’ You have no idea what the hell they mean.”

He vowed he would MAWA — Make America Wealthy Again — although before that, there could be another phase, Johnson said. “We’re going to do MAGDA. Make America Great Depression Again. You know what? It’ll be gr — it’ll be better than great. It’ll be a fantastic, unbelievable Depression, the likes of which you’ve never seen before.”

He added that this Depression would “be so great, we’ll be the ones eating the cats and the dogs.”

Presented by Dismukes with a large cardboard placard that turned out to be a page from a Cheesecake Factory menu, Johnson then was handed another board detailing his tariff system.

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