The group is one of several protesting Trump's SNL appearance over "racist and xenophobic language" they say he's used throughout his campaign — with Latinos and Latino-Americans targeted in particular. It's impossible to predict, but the ratings high watermark for the show involved another highly controversial Republican candidate: Sarah Palin's 2008 appearance opposite doppelganger Tina Fey drew an astounding 17 million viewers in the first half-hour.
– Donald Trump's much-hyped Saturday Night Live appearance is this weekend, and it seems one protest group is actually excited for it. "They're doing it for ratings," Luke Montgomery tells the Hollywood Reporter. "We are going to try to steal their thunder and steal the spotlight." Montgomery's group, Depart Racism 2016, is offering $5,000 to anyone in the SNL studio audience who calls Trump a racist live on air. "We're hoping someone can throw Trump off his game," he says. The Guardian reports Trump earned the fury of Latinos, activists, and others when he called Mexican immigrants "rapists" and accused them of "bringing crime" to the US. “If he were to call black Americans rapists, murderers, and drug dealers, that would not fly,” Montgomery tells the Guardian. “So why is it OK that he would say that about Latinos?" While multiple groups will be protesting outside the studio, there actually is a chance that protest could bleed into the audience. According to the Reporter, protesters successfully interrupted a Sharon Stone-hosted episode of SNL in 1992 to condemn Hollywood homophobia and misogyny.