JERUSALEM - OCTOBER 13: U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, on October 13, 2025 in Jerusalem. Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS

During the scathing opening sketch on "Saturday Night Live's" October 11 episode, host Amy Poehler (a former cast member) portrayed U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in a scathing parody of her clashes with Democratic senators during an October 7 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Another "SNL" alumni, Tina Fey — who formerly hosted the show's "Weekend Update" with Poehler — portrayed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Poehler showed no mercy, ridiculing Bondi's angry, insulting responses to questions from Senate Democrats. Quite a few liberal pundits on MSNBC slammed Bondi's highly performative antics as an embarrassment to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), but Bondi has plenty of critics on right as well. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, for example, has clashed with Bondi over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

In a biting article published by Salon on October 13, liberal feminist Amanda Marcotte explains why President Donald Trump continues to support Bondi despite the animosity that some MAGA Republicans have for her.

Marcotte notes that during the Senate Judiciary hearing, Bondi's "strategy appeared to be mimicking Regina George from 2004's 'Mean Girls' throughout the hearing." According to Marcotte, "showing off her mean girl skills to Trump" during the hearing "involved two adolescent tactics: tantrums and insults."

"Like all method actors," Marcotte writes, "I assume she was in character before she even hit the stage. Can Rachel McAdams sue the attorney general for this half-baked theft of her iconic movie villain? The resemblance was too strong to be a coincidence: The ever-present sneer. The tantrums. The nasty personal insults. The petulant head motions. The embarrassingly effusive praise for men she's using for power. She even brought a burn book."

Marcotte continues, "Bondi's resemblance to the blonde brat from Millennial movie lore wasn't just cringeworthy in a woman pushing 60. It also solves a mystery that’s persisted for months: Why President Donald Trump keeps Bondi around, despite her being MAGA;s favorite scapegoat for the administration's growing pile of failures. To the screen-obsessed president, a stereotypical mean girl is ideal casting to be his enforcer."

Marcotte observes that "MAGA influencers have grown increasingly loud in calling for Trump to fire Bondi."

"Their reasons are multi-faceted," Marcotte explains. "They're mad she won’t release the Epstein files, the voluminous documentation collected by the FBI into the criminal goings-on of deceased sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein. They can't seem to grasp her reason, even though it's obvious to everyone outside of the Trump cult: Her boss is reportedly in the files, and what's documented probably doesn't look good. MAGA commentators got mad at her when she expressed an openness to prosecuting 'hate speech,' even though she was clearly talking about criticism of Trump and not the traditional bigotries over which the right is so defensive."

Marcotte adds, "But mostly, they're mad because they were hoping that Trump's opponents would be rounded up and imprisoned by now."

Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.