It has become a “Saturday Night Live” tradition to invite comedian Dave Chappelle on the show in the wake of a presidential election.

He famously did it in 2016 before Donald Trump assumed the White House, and again in 2020 right after Joe Biden defeated Trump for the presidency.

On Saturday, Chappelle used his 17-minute opening monologue (the longest in SNL history) to tell Trump, who was to be inaugurated in a divided and frigid Washington, D.C., two days later, to “do better next time.”

But Chappelle, sitting on a stool, wearing a navy-blue suit and smoking a cigarette, also used his time to praise former President Jimmy Carter, the Georgia native who died Dec. 30 at the age of 100.

Chappelle said he was not qualified to judge if Carter was a good or bad president, but he told a touching story about the former president’s empathy.

Years ago, after he quit his own “Chappelle’s Show” on Comedy Central, Chappelle found himself in the Middle East. At the same time, he said, Carter was visiting Israel in the wake of the release of his controversial 2006 book, “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”

The book generated a passionate response from critics who claimed that the bestseller was slanted toward Palestinians.

In Israel, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported at the time that Carter met with Israeli President Shimon Peres, but several senior political officials snubbed him. The Israeli secret service initially declined to help the American agents guarding Carter. As part of his Middle East tour, Carter made plans to meet with the exiled head of Hamas, Khaled Meshal.

Chappelle, in his monologue Saturday night, said Carter informed the Israeli government that he wanted to venture to Palestine while on the trip, but officials told him that they couldn’t protect him because it was too dangerous.

In a 2008 “trip report” filed through the Carter Center, Carter wrote: “All my requests to meet with ministers of the government were publicly rejected and, more seriously, three requests from our Secret Service detail to work with Israeli security were rejected.”

“And, man, Jimmy Carter went anyway. I will never forget the images of a former American president walking with little to no security while thousands of Palestinians were cheering him on,” Chappelle said Saturday night. “And when I saw that picture, it brought tears to my eyes. I said, ‘I don’t know if that’s a good president, but that right there, I am sure, is a great man.’ It made me feel very proud.”

The trip report noted that Carter was undeterred by the challenges and that, after several news stories on the subject of security during the trip, Israeli security met Carter’s delegation at the airport and worked with them.

Chappelle’s comedy routines have become open therapy and healing sessions, mixed with sharp, funny and sometimes biting stories. He touched on Luigi Mangione, who is charged in the killing of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson last month; the California wildfires; and even Sean “Diddy” Combs and his notorious “White Parties.”

But Chappelle closed his monologue by tying the divergent personalities of Carter and Trump together.

“The presidency is no place for petty people,” Chappelle said. “So, Donald Trump, I know you watch the show. Man, remember, whether people voted for you or not, they’re all counting on you. Whether they like you or not, the whole world is counting on you.

“And I mean this when I say this: Good luck. Please, do better next time. Please, all of us, do better next time. Do not forget your humanity, and please have empathy for displaced people, whether they’re in the Palisades or Palestine.”

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