Trump says comedy show did 'hit job on me' for sketch poking fun at debate

Donald Trump said sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live should be "retired" and accused the media of rigging the election after the show aired a skit lampooning the second Presidential debate.

Trump called the satirical Saturday sketch a "hit job on me" and wrote on Twitter that the "boring and unfunny" show should be shut down. He signed off saying: "media rigging election!"

Throughout the scene actor Alec Baldwin delivered lines about allegations of sexual assault that dogged Trump in the past week. Trump wrote that Baldwin's portrayal of him "stinks."

When asked during the sketch whether he loves kids, Baldwin responds "I love the kids so much I marry them." The line refers to a 1992 video that appeared last week where Trump suggests he could marry a young girl (then underage) in 10 years. He was 46 when he made the comments.

In character, Baldwin also said nine women making allegations of sexual assault against Trump "need to shut the hell up." But Baldwin said women who have accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct "need to be respected and their voices need to be heard."

Hillary Clinton also took her share of the satire. Actress Kate McKinnon made fun of the scripted inauthenticity of Clinton's campaign.

Trump began ramping up rhetoric that the election is rigged before the show aired on Saturday. In a speech on Friday he said four times that the election is somehow fixed. He also mentioned 13 times that news organisations are allied with the Clinton campaign against him.

"The only thing she's got going is the media," Trump said of Clinton. He spoke just as a ninth woman — a former contestant on The Apprentice — accused him of sexually harassing her.

In his speech Trump said the accusations against him are "lies, spread by the media." On October 7 an Access Hollywood out-take emerged in which Trump is heard describing forcing himself on a married woman and grabbing women by their genitals.

Many Republicans have begun to distance themselves from the candidate since the video appeared.