"Saturday Night Live" originally wanted Donald Trump only for a one-skit guest spot, but his enthusiasm to participate prompted executive producer Lorne Michaels to ask him to stick around for the whole show.
"Actually, it started off as skit, and I said 'Alright, I'll do it,'" Trump, who will host "SNL" on Nov. 7, told Chris Cuomo on CNN's "New Day." "And they took it up to Lorne Michaels - who's an amazing guy, he's run 'Saturday Night Live' brilliantly for many years and he's a friend of mine - and he said, 'Well wait a minute, Donald's agreeing to do the skit. Will he do the whole thing?' And he called me and said, 'Will you host "Saturday Night Live"' and I said, 'It's an honor.'"
Trump previously hosted "SNL" in 2004 during the first season of his NBC reality competition series, "The Apprentice." Hillary Clinton appeared earlier this season for a cold open sketch alongside Kate McKinnon, who impresonated the Democratic presidential candidate, while Clinton played a bartender.
The NBC show came under immediate fire from Latino groups, asking Michaels to drop Trump has host as soon as his gig was announced. More than a dozen of the nation's leading Hispanic groups plan to hold a "Dump Trump" rally outside 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, where "SNL" tapes, on Wednesday and deliver a petition that has 460,000 signatures calling for NBC Studios and Michaels to rescind the Republican presidential candidate's invitation, according to the New York Times.
Despite Trump's contentious relationship with NBC and its sister channels recently, he told Cuomo that "You're never at war when you get great ratings," answering why he agreed to host "SNL" this week.
Trump is still scheduled to host "Saturday Night Live" with musical guest Sia on Saturday, Nov. 7 at 11:30 p.m. on NBC.
