Protest against Trump hosting ‘Saturday Night Live’ grows

NEW YORK – Pressure continued to mount on NBC to cancel Donald Trump’s guest-host appearance on this weekend’s “Saturday Night Live” as a coalition of advocacy groups delivered petitions to the network Wednesday calling for him to be dropped from the show.

The petitions delivered to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, home of NBC and “Saturday Night Live,” marked the latest attempts to dissuade the network from allowing the Republican presidential hopeful to host the show, with the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda earlier asking that NBC reconsider the decision.

“It is shameful for ‘SNL’ and NBC to think that racism can be repackaged as comedy,” said Juan Escalante, digital campaigns manager for America’s Voice, another group participating in the coalition.

Other participating groups included the National Hispanic Media Coalition, MoveOn.org and National Council of La Raza.

The coalition is accusing NBC of reversing itself for the sake of a ratings windfall while granting Trump “a free national platform to bolster his racist and xenophobic campaign,” Zaheed said.

NBC declined comment on the petitions and did not immediately comment on the attempt to get ads pulled.