Alec Baldwin and Kurt Andersen with Brian Lehrer: You Can’t Spell America Without Me

[Applause] hey thanks you thank you all for coming this is a heck of a day November 9th on this day in 1938 Kristallnacht began that's the only time Kristallnacht ever got a laugh on this day in 1989 the Berlin Wall came down did you know that and on this day in 2016 Donald Trump was declared president a lack of the how how many of you are still in the denial phase of grief how about the anger stage who's in the angle and the bargaining stage like if you include Venezuelans in the travel ban then the Muslims are okay too I'll just say to you guys that you were smart to do the book signing before the event now people can read along so all rise and open to page 160 scripture says when I mentioned to Mike Pence recently how good my golf scores have been so incredibly good better than ever he said good playing good comes from good pray did you write that I think I did yes so did you - no that was before drugs Roy Moore made religion a whole new part of the Trump era as he did today you know did you two know each other a long time have you worked together but not a long time but I I mean I was aware of who he was I knew him from when he found in spy and roads by and his career beyond that and I was contacted we have Emily in common so you got me to do the protein who got me to do the fill-in for you I did I don't know he launched my podcast career because he asked me yeah he asked me foolishly to fill in for him on his podcast and the rest is history I just took off in the dark a swirl I got filled in you know and uh yeah but he didn't know he asked me to his podcast studio 360 and I did I'm always a big fan of his and well the time came to do the book and I would I realize I a didn't have the ability to write the book and stem B I didn't really have the time my he was the only person I could think of who was smart enough and funny enough to write this book so and he says and and he has been the most generous of collaborators and and give me gives me credit like this again and again and again he he was an actual collaborator there are many sentences written by Alec Baldwin in this book and and and and funny ones good ones great ones I have a few a few so for example and I don't know who wrote this line but chapter eight is called it finally felt real like a movie which could be a satire of Donald Trump's brain but it also could be a satire of American culture indeed well then and that's the subject of my previous book but yeah I mean all of those chapter titles by the way are from lines in the book which are brilliant creative director Bonnie Ziegler had the idea of plucking phrases that we had in the text out and making them chapter titles and they work great but yes indeed I mean Donald Trump is is and and the fact of the election of this reality show guy as president United States is is the the fulfillment of of where America has traveled these last 15 years and in that way that people who are voters and I try to put myself in their position were exposed to him for a significant period of time you know The Apprentice is a show if you understand TV obviously and his impact on people The Apprentice ran for many many years I'd forgotten that know when the election comes and Trump is wanting Trump was running and the and the for the primary I thought this guy's going to get his head to him and be just dispatched very quickly you know and then it goes on and on and becomes this Freddy Krueger movie that we're living through but the but the but the point is is that that you remember working in the issue of campaign finance reform and working with Josh Rosencrantz when he was the director of the Brennan Center for Justice in MI you law school and and a Burton newborn and they were educating this group I worked with about the history of campaign finance reform and one thing I just said you know the real admonition is we've got to get Americans to stop electing choosing presidential candidates but they choose laundry soap because it says advertisements that they're all very glib and they were all very shiny and Trump is on TV year after year after year positioned in this certain way where people actually believed he was this crack executive this can-do guy on this TV show and that's what they voted for and and and not only it's a great point not only was there 15 years being sold to too many millions of Americans that show was a top ten show for a while the fact of it as a reality show of this blurring of creating this fiction of him hiring people I know it's reality reality is in the name of the of the genre yet it isn't reality at all and and that has served Donald Trump in his compulsive falsehood purveying very nicely and so in chapter 24 called the special counsel is totally rigged you're right as we were discussing replacements for call me I was very strong on needing somebody who looked the part a real central casting FBI director yeah well and and and that the Komen we had that we had him taught thinking about firing Comey and that was written weeks before he fired Comey Kurt Kurt Kurt I'm not just saying this to me beyond his writing ability I think he's like in some weird I don't know what culture I can describe this to must be in his DNA his family because he like predicted many many things that are in the book he writes stuff in the book and send me the the chapters and sure enough three or four weeks later there it is in the paper what Kurt wrote for the and then he said don't don't write a chapter about nuclear war do you think that image thing that central casting thing is why he's so obsessed with generals because they look like his idea of authoritative don't know I know I think that's absolutely true and it's no joke about you know why he nominated Rex Tillerson rather than bob Corker and we make jokes about it for Secretary of State was because he was a big guy with good hair I literally think that I mean it was reported as much that that's true so it is this central casting idea that it's all a show is a really part of his understanding of the presidency I mean what was reported while he was running that that his son Donald Jr told john Kasich's aides when when they were talking to him about being vice president and the and the aide to Kasich said well what what Oh Donald Trump jr. said to the aide like oh no he can handle domestic and foreign policy and the guy asked back well what will the president do oh he'll just be President yeah and I think that's his understanding we had a joke once I said that there's a an image I have of a van and has a house I don't know his personal details but Benton let's say has a house or an apartment in Georgetown or somewhere jacent to the district and he's got like a leather card room and there's a card table and they were there playing poker and there's whiskey and cigars I mean but rather than playing poker and turning over cards they're all going around the table holding up the names of nominees for different positions and and the goal of these meetings was literally to hear of the Editorial Board of the New York Times screaming and crying all the way down 90 i-95 highway interstate high 95 and the one guy turns over Pruett for EPA know like ooh good one good one you know the idea that I think that in my opinion will never know and and these are horribly I admit that these are horribly unkind things to say I don't think Trump had one single iota of input into who was in his cabinet at all he's surrounded by handlers they do everything I think he embraces as you mentioned military culture because it's it's it's the stuff he thinks he understands I can sit down with some people and they're gonna say they're gonna say Yemen is bad Yemen is bad remember this mr. president Yemeni is bad and I don't want I don't mean to say just segue into this but of course he's there going yeah I mean he's bad bad you know you just it's all distilled into something very simple for him and the many the military thing is in some ways he had think he I think he thinks it's the least complicated of Oliver's right and they're really in charge they can do it they were generals are never gonna lie they're gonna tell me who's up who's down good guy bad guy when DeVoss comes in and you know when they're like and secretary de Vos here to talk about education tell her I'm not in I'm not in you know he doesn't want to go you you remind me of something you know I've never had Trump we've never invited Trump except during the campaign as a guest on the show never did because it never occurred to us and the only time that I covered him was when I was just starting out in New York radio I was a street reporter for a local radio station and I was sent one day to cover Donald Trump introducing quarterback Doug Flutie with the football team that Trump owned for a USFL and you just Gentiles well that's the punchline I stuff you to you how did you work together on it was it more like the writers room on 30 rock or Dick Van Dyke with buddy and Sally Tina Fey was there writing really hey we've seen a pair I would hand some pages to Tina and she'd take the subway out to his house we met a lot we spent a lot of time even though time was of the essence and we didn't have much time to do it sitting down or just talking it through how would this we need a story how would this work and and well here's an idea and and and getting that down and then and then we started a write but I think that and I really think this is this is obvious you've everybody would assume this and that is he's a writer and I'm an actor and so when I worked with him I thought everybody's gonna know he's gonna do the writing and and he knows everyone thinks he's gonna do the writing so I'm not gonna get to heavy hands and and say there were there were like three things right so well I really think this is a good thing we should have it in the book and he'd be like okay you know he would he would acquiesce but not a lot you know I mean there was that one because it's his name and everybody assumes it's his material and we met a few times we met several times to get that going that I think we were like the Morrilton Hotel and I basically said good luck Kurt yes and I left and and and you but you tell them because my recollection is not that long ago but my mind is is going lately this came the the material came through you and the writing happened very fast well we didn't have much time so I had to happen fast but I know I take years to write books ordinarily a couple of years anyway and a I'd been paying attention to Donald Trump for a long time and and be that here was a fictional character already created I didn't have to make him up so I also and then I went through several weeks of just immersing myself in especially the long unedited transcript in the New York Times and The Washington Post with his language and any any unedited just pure Trump because to learn the language it was like literally becoming fluent in Trump ease and I made myself a little lexicon saying here's the ad here's the negative adverbs here's the positive adverbs here's the negative adjectives and so I had my little my little you know English Trump phrase phrase book that I could use as I was writing and and as Alec says yeah I wrote you know I had a draft in the first half in I guess a month and a half or so and he and gave it to him and he had lots and lots and lots and lots of suggestions money of which he entertainingly gave me over the phone in the voice which what made it fun and then then we went on and did the rest and and yeah there was real back-and-forth there was real you know there was there was a good creative some conflict you think there was work in movies in TV you don't know what creative conflict is yeah yeah but you also he was a pushover I think I was I think I was but interestingly enough did you sense in your observation of Trump and it's weird how in New York you know you know he's this image on the reality show and on the TV show for many years and I wonder if you share how I felt were in New York he was like a cipher you know you never really saw him or got to know him I've been raising money for charitable organizations in New York and on Long Island where I live for almost 30 years now and I'm you know tickets and tables and going to this and going to that all for a cause I mean some of it more for the Arts but some of it to raise money and and if he popped in with his wife they'd have the tux the gown red carpet choo-choo-choo have gone he was never a table mate you never had a chance to interact with him did you find the vest that well even the real estate community says she's not really part of us you know the other big real estate moguls at his level they're like no he's not he doesn't do anything with with the group he doesn't work with us hang out so what but you did besides the book you did the video that played before that was in front of Trump Tower wasn't it we did some we did a bunch of there's a pic there's there's by the way hilarious and wonderful and very expensively produced photographs in the book many of them why the book is so heavy but it's a little bit true and it's why we spent we spent two days as if on making a movie essentially shooting all these pictures including in front of Trump Tower which was we had no permission or permits or truly we just showed up in an SUV with him in drag I mean dressed as Trump is what I mean but you know remember years ago when I made films where we're doing a film in New York in the 90s or something many years ago I was very new to that part of the business the late 80s and they said and one person turned to the other the directors of the producer or the location manager and they said and I'm standing by the side and they said we're gonna have to shoot this scene Morrissey style we have to go Morrissey style lean I go what's that what did you say and they said Morrissey started like Paul Morrissey he would go in one day and he look at the lobby of a building or an office building in Manhattan in any case the joint he leaving he come back the next day and they had the shots worked on a piece of paper and they run in with no permits and just starts shooting in the lobby of the building until they got kicked out they try to squeak they had the most important shots first and worked their way down and the and we kind of have the same moral approach to Trump town no and then and then shoot us as soon as they didn't shoot us and as soon as the CIA or rather the Secret Service didn't like take him down yeah you're not comfortable and he was you were out in Trump dressed as Trump stopping traffic on Fifth Avenue I could shoot people here and no one would arrest me it was and once that went well it was it was a Brit the rest of the photographs were a breeze but that was that was a bedrock seliger the great Mark Seliger who did a famous famous photographer you my any of you might know him we're shoots for Vanity Fair and all high-end high-end fashion and great great guy a dull friend of mine I shot a lot of magazine work with Mark and he very graciously agreed to do this with us and we had to pretty intense days heading out to New Jersey and here in the city and out in Brooklyn has a great crew and a great group of people we got some fun pictures and he's a guy who had shot Donald Trump multiple times in the past so he knew he knew how to do the real thing as well Alec had is the writing work with you Trump scenes on Saturday Night Live went went in the week do you personally get involved well then we'll call me I mean naturally you know the shows coming and a Monday comes and that host is coming into town and Monday as a meeting that they have about you know what the person is comfortable with they want to and they want to their I think the writers want to meet the host to kind of suss out how game they are how nervous they are to do live TV and there are many many people who are on a wish list who just won't do us a know because they don't think they can handle the live component so during that week of course with Trump you wake up on Monday and you know six things had already happened over the weekend that may be material for the show so then the week goes on and and literally the the staff of SNL is you can imagine their whole attitude about this about the sketches always like wait for it wait for it you know and then the thing comes on Thursday whatever and they write that sketch and so I go and you know I let the writers do the writing in most aspects of my life when I did 30 rock I was the beneficiary of great writing and when I did that when I do West so now I'm the beneficiary and when I write it when I write a book I'm the beneficiary of great right but he he wrote I must say a very beautifully written and revelatory autobiography that came out early this year that was I don't think you had anybody write it I think my wife I just had our third child in three years it's about a lot of time on my hands I sit home and you know focus and yeah there is a section in the book that I couldn't help but notice that says best thing about the summer was no SNL which is a show that I made successful after it was completely failing and should have been canceled 25 years ago but wasn't you get the idea it's written by Alec Baldwin I wrote this passage I got to throw myself under the bus here he says best thing about the summer was no SNL which is a show that I made successful after it was completely failing and should have been cancelled 25 years ago if it wasn't because Lorne Michaels was a Canadian immigrant may be illegal maybe not so ungrateful must have terrible dirt on the executives at RCA and General Electric and Comcast's and I have a great sense of humor but the hater Alec phone message Baldwin is so bad at playing me like he's Aldo ray or somebody he and his brothers were like the Bowery Boys of Long Island this is my favorite line that I wrote is he as he says right he goes he goes famous loses all big mouths and no balls although the young ones Stephen is good people he says he says before he went born again I'm told he was like the David Bowie of Massapequa grade-a perverts or whether it's true of many of the born-agains before they become born again and I brother Stephen the David Bowie and and what Alec Alec escaped was the conversation that I had to have with the penguin publishing lawyer about whether Stephen Baldwin might take action against us for what I said his brother said it I mean what are you getting so I was able to convince them that we could no we wouldn't be sued I hope that's true yeah do you want to continue the conversation with Melania that you started through me the other day do you know I'm talking to gasps of course yeah well if I told you who that I mean I really don't want to say I'm gonna whisper it to you I think I told you didn't I off camera off you said it on the air who the person oh you didn't say that on the air you want to give him the background let me just tell you it's a secret between just us in this room but yeah I'm doing a we're at the Emmys and I'm like I ran into somebody and they said to me God you know or no we're we're not the Emmys oh I forget where we were and someone said to me but you know I spoke to someone so who spoke to so-and-so who is in the administration who wasn't the administration and said he told me that Melania loves your trunk I mean she watches SNL all the time and this is the funniest thing in the world and and he hates the fact that she thinks you're funny and he despises you even more because she thinks you're funny and I'm telling you this guy told me that somebody very high up in the administration or formerly high up in the administration [Laughter] [Applause] that's a lot of people that's why I'm safe that's why the secret is safe but anyway the I said that on your show that Milania is um how could she not be how many how many just applaud if you feel like there's more to Milania than you see I think there might be warning like that so that's tepid applause you notice the tip of the plus the but did you see the reply it was the first time my show ever got covered on Sarah Palin calm twitchy this is true and so Milania had some kind of full throated denial you know the White House denied well their staff did yeah I mean I think that you know Trump's on the phone telling her social secretary what to say to the press well Milan is in the other room watching SNL on the Internet does it change does it change the writing or anything about the process on Saturday Night Live knowing that the president might actually be watching and actually take things seriously last year that was true last year during the election year and immediately after Trump's response as to what we did we would all just look at each other we couldn't believe we were in the middle of that kind of event we're going on TV and making fun of the president and the president is not only pissed off he's like taking us on on Twitter you know whoever thought that would happen it's unthinkable to us but you know I for one him somebody who not to just jerk this to something more serious but I for one was somebody who I totally believed that Trump when he won he would change I thought he I had all the faith in the world that he would change because I said as I said to someone not only does the president is their position this rarefied position in terms of power and you know the the influence you have on people you're the most famous person in the world you're the most covered person of the world and so forth you're also a man or a woman when the time comes who has a Vista into the world that no one person can ever have you meet the smartest of the smart they to you you come to them you fly around the world they come to the White House you just immersed in the brightest and the most caring and the most compassion and the most creative the president gets to really really really sit and and dine among and spend time among the creme de la creme of our society in the world and I thought how could that not change somebody how could that not change someone and much to my surprise here we are how many of you remember the aides I didn't say we're alive in the eighties I said remember these how many of you read spy magazine so draw a connection between then and now because you were writing a lot about Donald Trump and watching Donald Trump a lot yeah in the 1980s what was he like then what drew you to him as a subject for spy at that time well we started spy in the end of 1986 when he was still not that well-known even in New York and but we immediately saw in him in his bowling and in his lying and in his calling up page six everyday to be in the paper and his voracious need for attention and all the things he still is that we saw in sort of embryonic form as just a great character for a startup magazine of satirical journalism and thought this guy this guy's for us and we did a and so and and and so we we covered him and then and and and of course cording to the phrase that has stuck with him ever since short fingered Bulgarian that was Joe we invented the short fingered meme before we call things memes and but but and and we covered him journal we talked about his bankruptcy when it was happening we it was it was tough coverage as well as juvenile ridicule and but my view is I mean in and at one point we took a Nepal national poll in 1988 saying who are you disappointed America or an actual poll that who isn't running for president and and the fact that four percent of Americans say they were disappointed that Donald Trump wasn't running we made a big deal out of Oh Trump should run and we thought it was a funny joke and it was a funny joke because it was so ridiculous that such a person could could be elected president in 1988 in 1992 and but here we are so my view is he's the same guy and what always struck me at the time was I had never seen anyone I've never been aware of anyone whose need for attention media attention is more voracious more like an addict's than his and and I think that's why he didn't change I think that's why he didn't pivot I mean he people we pay attention to him the world pays attention to him when he does nutty things inappropriate things outrageous things if he were just being a regular president he'd just be a regular president and he wouldn't be getting as much attention was he has as angry and as racially progressive in those days I know I know I mean again I didn't see it I mean except when the the the five young black men were arrested for the rape in Central Park that they didn't commit and were later exonerated for and he took out ads in the paper saying they should be executed even before they were tried there was that and then he didn't know well no just as he didn't really except until 10 days before last fall's election that Barack Obama was born in the United States he doesn't he never admits he's wrong even when he is in that case desperately wrong but no I he didn't seem like an angry guy or frankly as unhappy a guy Alec talks about how you play him by thinking of them as unhappy miserable as I could possibly make it and I don't think he used to be that much I I think that is the change in him actually about the tone of this book do you have any concern that having this kind of fun even though it's at Trump's expense distracts from how profoundly dangerous he actually might well well I think people have asked me all the time about doing the TV show and du says that kind of taken the edge off of our concerns about what we what to do and that is that you know the I think you know this is a much longer conversation which I don't want to bore everybody with now but you know one component of it is is that I mean one candidate got the majority of the votes and the other candidate won the electoral college and the difference that was significant in terms of popular vote but nonetheless he had the votes of tens of millions of people tens of millions of people bought that Trump image that laundry soap salesmanship and you know when you when you read my favorite article among many or among my favorite articles rather was Larissa MacFarquhar wrote in The New Yorker this she goes down to West Virginia takes a trip down to survey Trump voters and a guy I think it was I always forget his name who was I think taught political science or something or history at a community college down there all of his CV I'm forgetting but he basically said you know a lot of times you're from this area you leave this area you go to New York and you get the same treatment all the time you know are those your real teeth in your head and do you own any shoes and you sleep with your sister and they've got this you know New Yorker as a liberal elites have this very condescending view of this part of the world and he said he does a lot of people in this area don't necessarily support Trump or any of his opinions but we know how much you hate him and this is our chance to give the middle finger to the rest of the world or the rest of the country however there it is there it is people who you know they were they my hate is a great motivator you know and to me the most the most mesmerizing we may have said this on the air the most of the most kind of unsettling thing was helping will channel this hatred for Hillary Clinton and with my lifetime you know there are there are people who have deserved candidates who have deserved a certain kind of scrutiny and have stirred up a kind of a a negative reaction George Wallace is an obvious example but I never felt that Hilary couldn't qualified to become among the most hated people in American political life and somehow they succeeded in doing that and the thing I'll say about the comedy always it should we be being funny and about Donald Trump I what I'm one thing I'm very happy about this book and that our editors allowed it and Alec was down with it and with that is where we where this book goes in the end it only came out two days ago so very few people have read it but it goes to a pretty dark not so you know counseling his hair or just saying he's orange way and and and it's a you know it's it's pretty grim in the end but it's a lot of fun but as well as you get but hysterically grim it's a great how much how much do you do political comedy to have an impact and how much for entertainment purposes when they came to do the mean that I think that the genesis of this is is interesting I've said this before but when they came to me to do this I told I said hell no I said I have no desire to be Trump most of the things you do I mean I'm not a mimic or an impressionist but to the extent I've been called upon to do some of that and that has typically in that SNL world and on 30 rock it's people that I have some degree of admiration for much easier to imitate somebody you admire because ultimately you're getting towards something that you appreciate it's about appreciation so when the Trump thing came up I said under no circumstances am I gonna come on Saturday Night Live and play Trump and I'm supposed to go do a film and I was all set to do this movie and the people who were doing the movie were supposed to put a certain percentage of my income in an escrow account because when you work for the major studios and networks they may torture you over what numbers on your check but once you agree what that number is the check is ever bounces they've got tons of money and the money is there in these it's a different it's like Pirates of the Caribbean when you're negotiating your contract and so you get into all these torturous negotiations about escrow so I'm going week one week two I'm gonna go do the movie I'm gonna go to the movie and the money doesn't go into the back and I call my friend is the producer he's a friend of mine and I go I gotta tell you we're not doing the movie the money is gonna be there Monday Monday comes no money Friday comes the following week another grace period no money I said I call it blonde I go I'm Trump I'm Ben I hang up the phone we walk away from the movie cuz it's not put together which was a very difficult thing to do and I go and do this and again I've said this many times when this guy Chris Kelly there's - Chris Kelly is one who wrote the Trump sketches of the Chris Kelly with the stage manager when he leads you by the hand to go to the stage around the perimeter of the stage so that the audience the live audience doesn't see you and they have you behind a blind for you to step out for the introduction as I'm walking out to do the very first show of the season premiere Chris is taking me and we're about to do the show and I said I have no idea what I'm gonna do I'm gonna had no idea I mean I watched hours of him of tapes and him on YouTube and so forth and I'd like a you know left eyebrow up you stick your mouth out as far as you can but the hands go in the hands the hands and I'm coming but there are people who are far better I mean Darrell Hammond is a great impressionist and they had taran killam doing it before and there's a lot of people who do this better than I do but I think I went and did it really not thinking very much about what the impact would be I didn't think it would have very much in because I thought he was gonna lose then we'd all have a little bit of a laugh and Hillary Clinton would be the president and we'd all you know live happily ever after so when it didn't happen that way and we kept going people would come up to me I have never had a reaction in my life of anything I've ever done when people walk up to me I mean I'll be on the phone I'll be with my kid and I've had thousands of moments on the streets of New York and people walking by me going and I'm like I'm eating and they're like through the window they're like and they're very grateful that I'm doing this and I go oh that's cool you're welcome your way and but I don't really think of the impact but that is the impact I think of good satire yes of course it's preaching to the converted it's preaching the choir but in a way that the choir needs and the question in a way that that makes the choir feel good and also the fact that that as we're learning that you know what's happening in this election - did the Russians hand the election to Donald Trump I don't know did they make some contribution they made some country the Russians may have and I love to get your opinion about this in yours did the Russians make some contribution perhaps to Hillary Clinton run a rather anemic campaign yes I believe she did we didn't get the best Hillary on the on the road here in the Oval admitted certain states that they shouldn't have and and number three the Democratic Party did not really function as well as it might have I'm going to speak at the fundraiser the Jefferson Jackson dinner in Iowa on November 27th to basically exhort them to say you know we can never allow this to happen again and because you're running for president I wish you know about preaching to the converted Kurt I've noticed that some colonists and commentators have actually said and I can't think of any names right at this moment but I know I've seen it in prominent people saying I used to think of my job as to convince people of my point of view at this moment with what's going on I feel like my primary job is to bear witness right well one of the the people I find to be kind of heroic or or at least ones that I embrace are the nevertrump conservatives because unlike us they're actually taking a risk they are be they have been banished from the right as as thinkers as intellectuals as columnist and whatever so so I find those people I am reading those people more intently and and as much as you know hell as the times took for hiring Bret Stevens for various reasons and you know easy he's a true conservative reading a guy like that explain why Trump is a disaster I think is the important and will be important to to to collect to collect into the reality-based community as many people on the right as possible you know you can't turn away from the news for two hours anymore without missing something and I don't know how many of you saw already today that senator bob Corker who's one of those anti Trump conservatives announced that he's actually going to hold hearings on the authority of the President of the United States to press the nuclear button did you ever dream we'd be living like this no and of course you know we don't want to give up civilian control of the military but I my guess is on first impression he's going to use it as a vehicle to flesh out the thing that he has said publicly that he questions the stability and the competence of the President of the United States well it's it sounds a little bit like the preface to the 25th amendment we won't go straight to the 25th amendment and say he's unfit but let's let's get specific about the thing that scares everybody the most is he fit to control our four or four thousand nuclear well I went to the Robert Kennedy Human Rights Center dinner right after the election so we're there and I'm and I'm in a room it was one of the biggest events they had so we're at the Hilton with like you know eight hundred people are there and my friends in that family and beyond Ethel's there and Kerry and all the Maidan Bobby and they're there to raise money for the foundation and and the recipient of one of the awards they give it even was Biden and Biden gets up there were just a couple of weeks after the election and and everyone in a room full of Kennedy Democrats by and large is just numb with with existential anxiety and and they're showing all this imagery of Robert Kennedy and today I they're having the dinner again this year today I contributed some readings to the program coming up and you're reading and you're watching these clips of Robert Kennedy and I don't need to get into that but Biden said something that stayed with me just really just you just really really helped me right on the heels of the election he said people think this is bad they think this is a bad situation and it is bad it's devastating for us to have this foisted upon us he said but he said this isn't the worst we lived through and he's looking at the images of Kennedy over so he goes it's 1968 he was that was a bad year in 1968 King is killed Kennedy has killed the Democratic convention Nixon pulls the steak out of his heart gets out of the coffin and becomes the president United States you know it's like 1968 Wiis invites that we survive that and we will survive this we will survive the fact that this guy who's like some character out of Manchurian Candidate he's like Angela Lansbury's husband inland Manchuria this Bob who becomes president and but we will survive this as well so to expand on that Curt your own solo book these days is fantasy land how America went haywire 500 year history being made into a TV documentary series I understand if if the gods that feel business allow that yes and you have this sort of equation that America's unique religiosity plus 1960s relativism equals conditions for the election of Donald Trump is that oversimplifying a tomb oh no not at all that's that's really why did I write 400 pages no it's certainly the religiosity plus the the the sort of self selecting for suckers that this country has always provided we want to believe we want to believe and and often to believe the untrue showbusiness plays a big part of my argument of various kinds and and it's blurring of the of the lines between reality and fantasy and and certain things about the 1960s where the gatekeepers and the establishments were blown apart and and your truth was your truth and my truth was my truth and whatever man which which weirdly and ironically were down did in a time when we've elected president who says untrue things every day I think it's interesting I mean this is just my I'm not an historian I'm not a writer like Kurt this is as geeky as we get our problems right but the but the your I've been watching the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary and I've become kind of obsessed with it it's very I don't know how many people have watched the Ken Burns Apple audiences all right so this is it since it's so unsettling because you really are there and there's so much footage of maneuvers and shooting and guns going off and helicopters just sustained minutes at a time it's it's so depleting to watch this sometimes but you stay with it and they're a lot of North Vietnamese military leaders and political leaders giving their point of view but what I believe is that is that the and I know I'm not the only one obviously who has posited this and that is that you know we live in a world now where were we we need to keep not apologizing for Vietnam and to me Trump is the next extension of that as you say you talk about the religiosity this is part of their religion the United States never apologizes you know the United States is a country that is you know the yin and the yang the most beautiful and the greatest and the loftiest ideas and heroism and a lot of blood on our hands for a lot of innocent people we've killed this country could we've assigned that role of foreign policy we just have consigned it to other people we don't want to watch the coffins coming off the plane and anymore bluff above a buck and if we have a bone spurs we don't want to fight that ever ever exactly your bones person we didn't send somebody else in fight that work but I think that this is this idea that that the you know you know Trump is the next extension of that of a privileged white exceptional istic America that just does not want to look back and sort out their their feelings about their real mistakes and I think mainstream republicanism has been setting up the country for Donald Trump for years and years and years right now everybody looks at Mitt Romney as mr. moderate do you know it the book was called that he released to campaign on in 2012 no apology right there you go no but and that's and that again in the end of at the end of fantasy and what I talked about how the Republican Party and the right had gone off the rails Trump used what what had been done by the the Republican elite the the establishment Republicans for many years of of enabling and keeping going these conspiracy theories about the U n is about to invade and and all that you know they are they have they had they set the big softened the ground for trumpism in ways that they cannot escape once this administration is it is what is seen as the catastrophe that it has been but I just wonder if I mean this is a fanciful idea but I wonder if Trump will ultimately push some quotient some critical mass of people over from what I used to call them but everybody used to call the Rockefeller Republican category in into becoming conservative Democrats at least in terms of how they vote in the polls because here I've had friends my whole life who were like hey man I'm a Republican I'm a country-club Republican I'm one low taxes I want all these bothersome regulations off my back I had a friend of mine once her father was the president was a much older man and we would have dinner out on Long Island and I'll never forget Dewey after the crash in 2008 he looked me and if you saw the pain in this guy's eyes he was the president and CEO of one of the biggest brokerage firms in Manhattan and he looked at me he was this really great he was like a New Yorker cartoon of a Republican and he sat there and Olivia feed he looked at me goes Alec I just want to say that when I ran the company when the company didn't make money he said when the company made money we made money and when they company didn't make money we didn't make money and the idea now that they've all just you know kind of rigged that whole game but they make money no matter what and I'm wondering of that crowd who really don't give a damn about abortion or you know they don't have any opinion about social issues is gonna turn around and go this ain't my party anymore it really has been taken over wall-to-wall by this nut bag all right crowd but I say nut bag all right crowd what I mean is I'm kidding I don't what you got a social media and that you know over let at a time of the decline of the middle class I don't know how many of those people there are there still are some you know they're there and I and I in my view politically is that we have to keep the doors open as I said before as much as possible to to allow them to have Redemption come ahead and drink with us I well my parents were conservative Republicans have a kind that you know there are many fewer of today but if they were alive they would find the this guy unacceptable and and and my mother life actually before Trump stopped being a Republican so I think there are some and and and my view is that there's a chance and you saw it in the elections the other night I mean like okay you know you know come on come on maybe it takes you longer maybe it'll take you two and a half maybe it'll take you three and a half years to understand that this guy's a dangerous freak but come on you'll you'll get there and I think that's sort of the attitude I have where to grow up Kurt Nebraska so there would probably be a lot of people there who fit into the category that Alec was talking about before that we really think Trump is pretty grotesque Kurt is one of those people I think pretty grotesque but the way the liberal elites academia journalism everything looked down on us oh for sure and no and I think I think those two Alex pulling about Larissa MacFarquhar Speas and the people in West Virginia I think it always struck pundits as Wow odd why are these why are these people what what do they feel about what is this connection they feel Donald Trump what the connection they feel is exactly is that New York and and he's never been able to really crack the elite in me right and and he was always this outer-borough guy who never really made the cut and and and that's a real resentment and contempt and and and they they sensed that I think and and responded to it they hate they they hate liberal elites as much as he does yeah that's what they haven't come now come the real questions what do you think oh do you think that Jack from 30 rock would have voted for Donald Trump well I think I could safely say he definitely would not have voted for Hillary Clinton so but the really he probably he probably did vote for Trump really holding his nose the whole time the whole time what do you think would be the first thing Trump would say if you were stuck in an elevator together the Trump would say I'm sure that was for you Kurt my hands are very very big my fingers I don't know because he does write that letter to my partner Graydon Carter every couple of years really pathetically insisting that his hands are actually large and his fingers are actually large still how about you say to me yes yes have you ever had the steak tartare at 21 it's fantastic we're a vegetarian Alec okay I should have known that Alec I hear you have a theory on Trump leaving office early can you elaborate please what I'm not the opinion that I mean all these people and this is all just opinion this is all speculation I'm of the opinion that Muller in that crowd who are handling this investigation I guess right now starting to sleep with one eye open because of this congressman from Florida who said that he wants him to get him fired because what was it he said he's they got from Florida so that it's I forget his res on for that but the I feel like Muller in that crowd they really are professionals who know what they're doing and they understand that the to extract the president from office is an excruciating process for this country regardless of party and something that we do not enjoy doing we do not want to impeach the president even if the president is an eighth degree black belt buffoon like the one we have now they do not want to yank him out of all and the so they're probably gonna lay off and things are getting a little quieter for the holidays they don't want to have us have you know the holidays spoiled by that then after the first of the year I think they're gonna really release don't they hit the pedal to the metal here and everything I'm hearing from friends of mine cause we all have some connections in that world is that this money-laundering thing is that is the trail whether it connects to Russia or not as a different story the truth of Trump as a man who has it this is the main reason why you don't see his income taxes and there's a lot of stuff going on there and I do believe that the Republicans now they may want to wait till 2018 November to see if there's a continuation of what we had the other day in which there's this kind of you know renunciation voting but at the same time the longer they wait they got to kind of get the cordite out of the room the stink of the gunshot out of the room once they kill him so they can mount pence as their leader because pence will be the president and no but I mean but least Pence listen anything's better than what we have in Pence's is his policies are abhorrent but he's one of them so there's more of a likelihood he'll deal with with what's coming on it'll be infinitely better he also would not be reelected I can say right or somebody to mindset what they want to do is they want to get pence in office right at the crack of 2019 so like when Johnson became president under under Kennedy he would have a shot at 10 years in office per the Constitution he get less than half of trumps first term and two full terms of results that have ten years of this guy which is which is wishful thinking I think that I think that they've got to decide for themselves I think if it was just a matter of time deciding when to get rid of him and how so that the party can move on cuz the party will never move on with him as president yeah and you said there's nothing worse than we have now but you know from the audience and I have to say I get this call on the show much more than I get if Trump committed something really bad for the good of the country if it's a high crime or misdemeanor he should really be impeached I get this as bad as Trump is and as much as we'd like to see him impeached wouldn't it Mike Pence presidency be worse so with the audience how many of you think how many would of you if there's an impeachable offense would be rooting for Donald Trump to be impeached how many of you would be rooting for not because pence would be worse impeachment wins yeah as I believe it should because you know with Mike Pence as odious as he is in so many ways he I would not worry about the the the real power and the real unchecked power that any president has which is waging war and and and and that's we now have a mentally unstable whatever you want to diagnose him as a mentally unstable person who is in who has the nuclear codes I don't care what you say about Mike Pence I'll go for Mike Pence over that and as I say I can imagine Donald Trump because he is 35% love them in some manner gee somehow to get reelected III don't think I can imagine Mike I just have one question for the audience do you think Trump is mentally unstable I wish outta here you do you think he's mentally unstable you do okay no this gentleman in the front row you you do okay I couldn't tell because we've been working hard up here we've been working so hard up here and the entire evening you've been like this and then this is the front row effect it really does it really is you know a buzzkill for curtain up but I want to ask the two of you I want to ask the two of you because you're you know political animals do you really fear that Trump will get us into a nuclear war you view that as real huh I guess I don't walk around thinking that he's actually gonna do it because I tend to think as unstable as he is that he thinks he's playing a game of unpredictability and we've seen him temperate on the Asia trip he's not talking in those terms well we did a little bit yesterday don't toy with us so they tend to think not but don't quote me and in short of nuclear doesn't it to be nuclear war it can be a an unwise war a conventional invasion of North Korea that he could or Venezuela the old example exactly you know California you know you heard the Bandon thing right so I'm just gonna say we're gonna bomb the Pacific Palisades so bad those people Hollywood audience member asks when did you realize Alec that you could morph into D JT now I I don't I don't view that as anything I do well I just I know that the cold opening of SNL which is the kind of foundation of all the stuff we've been doing is is the is the firing of a cannon of a 90-minute show that is live in front of a live audience it's not as I say to people it's not like Steven Spielberg with Daniel day-lewis doing Lincoln you know they were rendering this finely stitched finely embroidered performance of you know the details of the man inside the man we're doing this trick we're doing this crazy you know kind of you know cartoon it's a it's a big bloated caricature and I mean I read on the internet sometimes all the time you're like you know Alec Baldwin go home you suck you suck as Trump and I sit there and I go you know maybe I do suck you know and then I take my Emmy and I you know and I iron my shirts with it and by the way I mean the the the why his Trump is successful it has is it's an interesting question because it's not just about your skill at that but what people don't know and and and he should just go on the road doing is his his hilarious mimicry of obscure actors from the 40s and 50s of Marlon Brando of all kinds of people I could just it's fun but this is why I wanted to work with him just to be able to just for me all day long but but the truth of the matter is that they'll finish about this with this and that is you want to know what I think what the best thing is about the Trump that I do is it Trump himself hates it so much that's right I'll take that I'll take that what would mr. Anderson want us to most remember about his book fantasy land somebody who's actually not trying to be cute that it is incumbent upon all of us who still consider ourselves members of the reality-based community not to give up and to make a stand for saying I'm not going to accept the nonsense you're spouting just because hey it's your opinion basically and and and that that that that I don't think we can you know it's apparently dark picture I paid him what's happened to America in the last 50 years or lost hundreds but especially in the last 50 and but but I I really do i I don't think we can swing back to the way it was Minh but I do think we can stop the the stop the the fantasy land tide from from going further and and and donald trump and trumpism while it's a great expression of what I wrote about even though I was writing the book before he ever came along as president it's not just it I mean he'll that will end one way or another there will be no more president Trump but all of these problems that we've indulged in terms of holding people accountable for reality will be there and we have to fix those I want to take this interrupt this I this is what I do best I'm so corny and sappy this way and I want to say that we have a great opportunity to say the real pleasure for me to be on stage with these two words these are two men who hosts television shows on public radio shows rather on public radio that are among the best radio shows on public we are the best and I hope I hope you I mean I was joke with him I always you know laugh or him from head to toe whenever I see him but I'll be in my house shaving if I'm at out the door early and I'm there and his shows on and brian says blabbity blah brian says Bobby but and I stopped and I'm like my god did you hear that screaming at my wife and the other in the bedroom oh my god did you hear what Brian said god and his show is the most concise and the best in the best digest of what's going on in New York and Beyond and his show studio 360 you've got to listen to the studio 360 his show was a great great great radio show on pump a great it was great two of them had testicle but it sounds like you shouldn't listen when you're shaving I know I've got gashes and and with all due Camila t considering who the three of us are up here you know who's going to lead us out of this fantasy land Kurt who's that women no question no and and I you know I mean again what happened on Tuesday night we shouldn't just say good done but but but it did it did make me think again because of women in no small part that that what would that the thing I thought during the the about the success of Trump's candidacy before he was elected which was as so many people thought this is the last gasp of this sad sort of pathetic patriarchal remnants and okay they got their guy he's not gonna be President fine III since of course my view changed once he was like a president but I do think that the other night gave me at least the glimmer of feeling that that we that yes this is just a long last hurrah before we take our rightful place as the subordinate subjects to the women running the world but I think that you know an interesting thing to me was that and I'll try to make this connection if I can and that is that you know the the two and the three referendum issues that were on the ballot here in New York were of course the the the Constitution convention that got shot down the the use of the forest land or whatever it is there's some some swapping of public lands and so forth and the right of judges to seize the pensions as you all know of officials who were convicted of crimes which other was so happy to see that because you know in this country and this is just my observation in my lifetime the the list of things goes from sexual assault and we're going through that oh spasm now more people coming down today in the paper and in the news another sign of age in the paper it was in the paper everyone it was there in the paper who are you young people to read the paper more but so the but the the point being that in this country short of sexual scandal which we have seem to have a tremendous appetite for the scandal beyond assault and rape as a separate put that in a separate category people having affairs there was that wonderful article though it was in The Times a little while ago on the anniversary of the Gary Hart scandal and they talked about that being the fulcrum that being the turning point but all of a sudden political reporting became about these kind of vague assessments of people's character to be candidates and not about their positions and then about you know real reporting this article you can google it by Gary Hart anniversary in New York Times the articles breathtaking this article and the amoeba scene he's got a book coming I don't know or habit but my point is is that you know with Trump you know we have Trump who he's been accused of being a sexual predator and I think the people are trying to there are certain people who are trying to press that case very difficult when you're a person of power and privilege movie stars political figures and so forth but one thing we can keep pressing forward is this notion that Americans may be in second position have a great disdain for word that is people who steal from the public till or use their power in order to line their own pockets of the pockets of their friends and that apparently seems to be the case with Trump you know where Muller was headed Trump and his family our front men potentially will see what the charges are to enrich other people at the expense of the public and that is something that I think Americans have a real real disregard for but don't we think speaking of women speaking of Donald Trump speaking of his life as a sexual harasser an assaulter that absent his election alleged himself by only by seven him himself and seventeen women but yes but but absent his election which was among other things a just a repudiation of oh we don't that that's okay we don't care about that I'm not sure that the the tsunami that began with Harvey Weinstein would have happened to the extent it did that it's a kind of displaced oh you get to be President well these guys don't get to do this you know so it's a weird thing that silver lining is what I'm saying to the hole Trump presidency good go ahead I'm sorry I guess now that we found the silver lining we have to wrap up if you're going on a book tour this is the beginning of a tour with the two of you is that right we're going on tour together yes we are psyched we are we're going across America to begin his campaign for the presidency in the 2020 do you have a name of party of the party I would like to whatever a party I'd like to run what doesn't run with you could make up your well I mean that would be the dream big part my dream big party the fantastic party the the the the steak tartare party the I think I think what if I was serious about politics but I probably tried to do is revive the Democratic Party and they need reviving but I think that they're ladies and gentlemen please thank her Denison and Alec fall down [Music] you

Channel: 92nd Street Y

Views: 10,854

Rating: 4.8064518 out of 5

Keywords: 92Y, 92nd Street Y, Alec Baldwin, Kurt Andersen, Brian Lehrer, Donald Trump, Politics, funny, President Trump, President Donald Trump, America

Id: cOorF0jAOmc

Length: 64min 36sec (3876 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 15 2017