This week’s episode of “Saturday Night Live” stared with a political cold open that brought Aziz Ansari to the sketch show. The segment began with Ashley Padilla’s Karoline Leavitt launching a press briefing at the White House. “You know I’m going on maternity leave, which is when you ask President Trump about maternity, and he says, ‘Leave,'” she snarked. Leavitt quickly ceded the mic to Pete Hegseth , played this season by Colin Jost . Popular on Variety “I’m not going to apologize because I wear my religion on my sleeve, literally,” he said. “I have a tattoo on my forearm of Jesus choking out Jimmy Kimmel.” Near the end his time on the mic, Hegseth said, “In summary, war is awesome.” He was quickly passed the mic to embattled FBI director Kash Patel , played by Ansari. “After the attempted assassination of President Trump — another one — we conducted an investigation that could not have been more thorough.…