Alec Baldwin and Kurt Andersen, "You Can't Spell America Without ME"

you know we at politics and prose have been working with the folks here at Lisner for a number of years now putting on large author events I would were very grateful to be able to have access to such a spacious and convenient facility here in Washington and a huge huge auditorium was certainly needed this evening for such a big Lee event I mean is this the greatest event ever or what it's it's fantastic you know it is it is hard these days not to mimic Trump late night hosts have been fixated on the president for months and many stand-up comics have incorporated takes on him into their acts but Alec Baldwin's channeling of Trump on Saturday Night Live has become a standard against which other parodies are and will continue to be judged his is his wildly popular impersonation has already netted him another Emmy and it's likely to go down as a crowning achievement of a long acting career that dates back nearly four decades and has included more than 60 films more than 20 TV shows and eight stage roles over the years Alex played a wide range of parts and garnered nominations for an Oscar and a number of other awards but he really hit his stride as Network executive Jack Donaghy on the NBC sitcom 30 rock where he won two Emmys three Golden Globes and seventh Screen Actors Guild Awards during the show's run from 2006 to 2013 Alec also has authored or co-authored two previous books and now he's joined forces with Kurt Anderson to produce you can't spell America without me a fake memoir in which Trump looks back on his first year as president Kurt himself first mocked Trump back in the 1980s when as a founding editor of the satirical magazine spy he started calling Trump the short fingered Vulgarian over the years Kurt has reported for a number of magazines including Time Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and served as editor-in-chief of New York he's also host and co-creator of studio 36 a weekly radio program about arts and culture produced by Public Radio International and WNYC and he's authored several novels humor books and works of nonfiction including earlier this year fantasy land how America went haywire a 500 year history the trip book does sound a lot like Trump so much so in fact that readers are likely to have a difficult time telling the difference between the real and the fictional but until Trump himself writes his own presidential memoir this one may have to do and if and if like Trump you really don't care to read a book Alec and Alec and Kurt have provided lots of very funny photos to look at now to to help the conversation move along this evening the author's will be up here with my wife and business partner Lissa who's worked as a journalist and longtime speechwriter and advisor to Hillary Clinton and and most relevant and and most relevant for this evening elicits an enthusiastic viewer of Saturday Night Live so please join me in welcoming Alec Kurt and Alisa hi everybody how are you thank you all for coming out tonight what a great crowd we can actually see you which is wonderful can you see them I can't see them I can see them I see these hazy round objects anyway and it's it's it's gonna be a really fun evening we've been so thrilled thinking about this event I want to thank you guys both for coming to the swamp and Alec back at your where you don't where it started in politics for you sort of its GW he was a student here early on and I just want to say that your timing is is really impeccable because you've managed to come before Trump got back from his 12 day departure from from the Swan of the plan all part of that but if you're here at 10:45 tonight you know you could just go five or six blocks over maybe ring the doorbell give them a free copy signed you could sign thought about that you thought about it okay I'm a copy but you decided not to we're in a hurry well anyway we're here here in DC we definitely need some levity most 24 hours a day basically anyway I I have to say that when I heard about this book and I don't know if any of you out there felt this way but I wasn't sure I was gonna like it anticipatorily because the Trump comedy right now is so good on screen on stage and obviously you've developed it into an art of its of its own a level of its own it's really good hard to beat and obviously comedy on stage and screen is different from comedy on the paper on page on a paper in a book and I'm just wondering it was your idea to do the book right Alec well I said this in the press before that was kind of a joke when I went to a sales conference for this other book I wrote a memoir and they said to me what are you gonna write next and I just was kidding I said oh I'm gonna write a memoir a Trump memoir a memoir of Trump in his first hundred days an officer something and they burst into a pause he's like 20 people and in this room that we're having this conference and I said I leaned over to my agent I said we better get on this right away and trying to get this sold but but I really mean this when I say this I'm not being he's heard me say this ad infinitum and I'm not being kind or generous and that is when I did this I I knew I didn't have the time to write a book like this and I didn't have the ability to write a book like this I could think of really only one person who I thought was smart enough and talented enough as a writer in long form in a book and she wasn't available and she was not speaking to me and by the way Kurt's show is studio 360 not studio 36 yeah it's a great pockets but but I knew that Kurt was the only person who could do this and I reached out to him and he was available we got together he wrote the book he wrote the book but you guys didn't really know each other I got it I gave him a starting radio he he guest hosted studio 36 back when it was called that and in the 40s or 50s and and that no truly he did guest hosts the show and that's and and we had known each other before that and then we got to know each other better after he was a much better radio host than I and became a radio host a podcast host himself although I did do your show on your staff said to me they go god you're so good you're so good would you come back and do the show again and I said well what would Curt think about that and they said Curt but no I did I guest in his show one time so anyone I've known who he is forever but we big yeah but we'd never worked together and that idea certainly appealed to me that actually uh and and this seemed like a prime opportunity but it's interesting how someone like me is not going to get too heavy-handed and impose a lot of my mediocre writing on someone you know I knew when we we made the this unit here he was gonna do nearly all of the writing I'd send him little notes and little paragraphs here as they would try this try this any of you like yes thank you but you must have understood something about the Trump character that helped well those little phrases and things but the point is is how do you get into that how do you start with any book what do you walk into that's what thrilled me when he would send me this stuff and you know he's I don't want to ruin it for you but I'll just mention one thing where he says that Trump correct me if I'm wrong but he says the Trump takes his iPhone and he dictates into the iPhone and they made an app where that stuff goes straight from my iPhone directly to the printer you know there's nobody in between there's no editor so Trump is dictating this thing it's going back to the printer and going to the printing press and that that's the book directly to you from me to you and you're like that was brilliant record in my life you know what a great way to get into it well there was the Barons editing app also yes well and and you know we Baron Baron doesn't ever come on well the page the president in this rendition refers to him a lot and of course that you know that can be tricky one of Alex Saturday Night Live colleagues got whacked for referring to Baron in an unkind way but he's there and and he becomes really again not this isn't really a spoiler but he comes in it becomes a very important consultant to the president really and and because you know who but an 11 year old boy would give this guy the kind of advice he needs no but I mean actually that's it you know it's a serious point I was going to ask you about it because back in the day of Saturday Night Live the Chelsea Clinton sketch when she was what twelve or thirteen got criticized rally and from from there on it was kind of hands-off of presidential kids at least ones who weren't grown up like Don junior and whatever then we really get that but then you can really you could really turn the screws on but the way you I mean Baron is in it a lot but he's you have elevated with but but in no way that anybody can take exception to the family so you just see Trump out of people to to you know come up against him to offer him some devil's advocacy to debate him or whatever you just see him alone in his house of like eleven o'clock at night there's Barron watching on his iPad or something and Trump says something like what do you think of this and he reads him some notes and the kids like sounds great dad you know that's what he wants so he just needs approval from where he's gonna get it and speaking to us doing it together I mean when when I mean Alec he under sells his ability to do improvisational Trump language the the days we spent doing the photographs in this book which was like shooting a little movie really and he was in the drag that is to say the costume I guess he pretty much was trumpet all day long so that was a great pleasure but but really just the improvisational stuff what was was spot-on and again as a as a as a collaborator in his additions well the yes and he could also say this he could say this we're great because he speaks we both speak Trump ease it turns out we've learned the dialer now do you do you improvise on the show know when you go there you'll say to them I mean the working with writers when you're not the writer is the same pretty much wherever you go which is that they are you're professionals at the highest level he writes books and he's a famous writer and I work with the writers at SNL and there are people who would prefer you give it a go as written and we can get into the modifications later on after the dress or what have you and if I say to them you know I think this is repetitive of something we've already done before I mean they listen to me but they are on occasion they may take my advice but they don't really need it you know there I mean Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider who did most of the writing last year who wrote most of the Trump stuff were the two head writers they left the show this year their contracts were up and you know everything then they would give you was you know pretty spot-on in terms of the direction we were gonna go in but the other thing is that with the book is that the the idea of him you know how he develops I don't want to give it away but what happens to Trump during the book something pretty predictable but nonetheless thrilling happens to Trump in the in the course of the book and just mapping that out as to when he makes that turn you go along you go along you're going and right at the perfect time booms Trump starts to change somewhat and I always say the same thing to people which is that you may watch television comedy SNL is just one example you may watch on screens of whatever source this comedy zeitgeist about Trump and many people don't feel that there's really anything there for them they get that I can just see people who have I come on and I'm going like this and doing this goofy crap that I'm doing they're gonna go like click and change the channel that shows you how old I am click and change them what I meant was they change the town and the but the the for everybody else who wasn't quite sure they want kind of a smarter or more detailed this book is for them this is really really smartly well what's amazing about this book and I was going to say I was worried about it and then I read it first of all it's absolutely hilarious it really is hilarious from start to finish you know you kind of worry are you gonna have whatever the would be post-traumatic I guess traumatic stress syndrome just going through the last year again would be hard but it wasn't it's really really funny but what's amazing about it and I guess this is the definition of a really good parody is that as outlandish as some of the things are and there are many things that are outlandish they're all believable they're plausible that's what's crazy yes what's terrifying well that the challenge was clearly from the beginning was here is this guy who is like a fictional character like a character in a movie which of course is a fact that he uses to be entertaining and that's what he's about so you know to to parody that to satirize that you have to go further but we didn't want to go over into the you know three-minute cartoon version of him or be too divorced from reality at admit to us and III think it's much more interesting as you say to have it be wait a minute am I really reading Donald Trump if he were to speak his memoir into his iPhone you know plausible up to a point was that was the trick but not have it be just as if you know stuff we'd heard before I have things he'd addressed before so you know it was it was it was a the the challenge was cleared doing it was was wasn't so easy because writing is never easy and I think that the reason you know we stop and think about where we're at in terms of the the length of time that this has gone on you know III was contacted about doing Saturday Night Live in the late summer Lauren is a dear friend of mine and we live near each other on Long Island and I see him all the time in this summer and he said to me a Tina had an idea that you would play Trump I think I like spit my drink I was like I said I'm not gonna play Trump I've got no that's the most asinine thing I've ever heard of my life I don't want to do that he said no no you know you we always thought three shows and out a couple shells in October rolling into November and it would be over and then of course it wasn't over and we go on and I never dreamed never did I dream I would do that or but the response we had was kind of very dynamic and everything but the reason this continues on into the next season I mean I'm the first person who wakes up I wake up every day I go okay we're done now we're not for this like all of you were sick of this nobody and then I woke up the do alright people like Alec fantastical like you create Alec they don't stop in there you know you were helping us get through you're helping this country and I think that the you know where I'm at you know a year after the election is that as I really thought this guy kind of crossed a line even in the last few months last couple of months because I really expected him to change I'm gonna get a little serious here I really expected he would change I expected he would win and he was completely unprepared and he was a person that never worked you know with others in a body like that he was a mogul of a corporation and just you know told everybody what to do in my ad it's my idea about Trump is I don't think he's really gotten his hands dirty or been overly involved in anything over the last twenty years I think that his team identifies some building they're gonna tear down or some bunch of buildings in Manhattan if you live in New York you know that New York has gone through another one of the great Renaissance over the last 10 years where they're rippin down 15 or 20 percent of the city and they are ripping down chunks of New York you cannot believe what they're doing and building big office buildings and building big apartment buildings everywhere you go there's scaffolds and streets are closed and it's a mess and taking the word Trump off bill taking the word trouble off the building yeah we're putting them on buildings right are they are they with oh there's one right but but my point is I'll finish this but the thing is is that I thought that he would get into this position and several months would go by and someone would be able to reach him someone would count whether it was his daughter who who knows who he listens to and they'd say listen you won even though you won and there's a lot of dispute about how you wanted whether you're legitimate or not for the time getting the president out on you know you know like calling him out on a foul like it's golf or something is is almost impossible to do and I thought he would take a deep breath and go okay I'm the president now and begin to focus on not only the power and the prestige and all of those kind of tactile or more common perks and benefits of being the president the President of the United States beyond anyone alive more than anyone alive in the world has a view of humanity that you could never get somewhere else you travel around the world and you meet the best and brightest around the world you see real human suffering and people who are trying to heal that suffering you come home and you meet the creme de la creme of the arts letters academia politics all you do is shake hands and go to dinners and have photo ops with the greatest Americans alive or the neediest Americans alive and and I thought to myself my god he would finally come to his senses and say what a tremendous opportunity this is for me as a human being forget about it and that alone I thought to myself we can't be mean enough to this guy one of the tremendous a tremendous gift a tremendous gift that was given him I should say yeah and then at one point we haven't talked about you know if they say they want me to be presidential but but if if I were presidential they'd still hate me and and my people my people wouldn't like me as much and I think that's something like that is actually probably going through his head he knows it's that speech he gave a a month or two into the his presidency to the joint session of Congress everyone tonight he became president that was that night and of course the next I'm supporting he was no longer president because he was tweeting is that madness and and I think it's it's that's not entertaining in the way he needs to be entertaining well currently you are either very prescient or he's utterly predictable or both because in this book there are things that you wrote as fiction and they at the time they had not happened that three weeks later they happen yes which is also terrifying yeah so I just wondered if you could comment about that but then also looking ahead if you were writing it now what would you be writing is fiction that we might need to worry about no do you want to put your turban on or you don't yes exactly as you see the Karnak thing we do see in the film the first time in how it happened to get it again and I kept he got tired of me just sending emails like this this thing from weeks ago would just happened one of them was you know a month before it happened that he was thinking about fire and coma they say I can't fire coming we'll see about that well then he fired coming and then and then it happened in little ways I mean I guess that was you know plausible but but it you know obviously shocked us all there was I had this idea of oh he would just he would be tense and anxious because he couldn't fire anybody because he would discover that all the stewards and and and people at the White House were civil servants and he couldn't just fire them like he can in Merrell ago or so so I had Reince Priebus we have Reince Priebus tell him oh I found out that the head head steward the butler this this woman is is is at will and you could fire her and he gets excited and has rights of fire her well a month later the what she's fired so small level the big level and then the eighth time it happened Alex said just we're not ending this book with World War three okay we and I yeah we obliged we don't it's it ends in a dark place not that done have you both met him I'm in a few times you you're in New York and you go to an event that's a social event and you know something for the Arts or something to raise money for a charity and you'd see Trump would come and he was all smiles and black-tie and his wife and a gown and they would come for the photo-op and then leave he was never a I always have said that he's never a table made in an event who you're going to the the dinner afterward and he was always absent from that and and people have pointed out to me that he's not tight with anybody in the real estate world and sell people in the real estate world because unlike people think that Wall Street doesn't really run New York or they almost do they're like a close second but the real estate industry runs New York and those men and some women who run that businesses are on top of that business some of them have said to me he's not one of us we never see him we never hang out with him we never really know him when you met him he was affable but the I mean to me I just think it's this notion this is something that is very tired maybe everybody's heard this before but did you go and do this TV show this reality show and many people across the country they bought this idea that he was this crack businessman that he was this crack executive this this far-seeing powerful decisive intimidating they bought that DNA in him were my friend said to me I was allude to this before that he would like drive up to one of these sites and his team would say well here's the ones we're gonna tear down hammering the Paducah project six nine seven five one it is anyone I pull up a limo and go fantastic sounds great and then leave you know it was like no he's not a guy that's sitting there like Howard Roark yes he's standing over models of megalopolis and he's designing the new New York you know I ran references this is the kind of literary I'm just trying to keep up you know so you can say you had met him but you had to kind of inhabit his well I paid attention to him for too long of a time yes all right I was a student of his so to speak and and and yeah I didn't have to inhabit him and and and of course I you know was paying attention in the back in the 80s and early 90s and then didn't I mean I never watched apprentice or Celebrity Apprentice and and as he was performing the role of great executive so then and obviously like all of us I have spent the last two years paying spending reading the interviews and hearing the interviews but I spent some prep time really a couple three weeks just immersed 15 hours a day and all of all of the the material especially the unedited raw transcripts of his interviews with the Washington Post in the New York Times which which give you a sense of the the the way his mind works in a way that that edited bits of it never do the the the zigzagging and and the compulsive self praise and all of it and and in fact I worried a little bit that we in this book he's a little too his sentences end properly and they and they are they are decipherable and they're they're you know you can't do a full reproduction of how he speaks or it wouldn't be intelligible but but what is we clean them up we clean them up a little bit but what is amazing about it I think one of the more subtle things that's still very powerful that is the digressions like he just you'll be going along and then there's just this crazy digression that just seems like exactly the way he would digress so you're just kind of imagining that mostly yeah no and and I did I mean unfortunately you know we had to do it very quickly and we were we it was from beginning to to the and Manuscript was three months and then we were able to update it all summer long but I was glad at lasted as it was as it was as brief a period as it was because I I was kind of inhabiting him a bit and and my wife insists that I became a nasty jerk for for two or three months not so much to her but to about other people that I would just say the rudest things about people so I guess I was I I have I felt his pain I guess as one of his predecessors might have said does that mean you empathize you have to know well I mean you know it is it is writing fiction even though he's a real guy it's a novel and empathized I mean get a sense of understanding a more visceral sense of understanding of him that I did just when I was a more casual reader and observing very beautifully about his relationship with his mom very tender and very beautiful yeah she had zero influence on it but it was a beautiful relationship Alec what about I mean obviously there's a difference between impersonating a real person and acting and developing a character creating a character who's not real and you've always done him I mean you were a kid doing you like him personally so how how hard was it to do Trump it was very hard because you know what we have him do on the TV show was almost always at a podium at some public forum a debate you're talking to a crowd you're talking to a TV camera it's public Trump and and I would say to them oh please write something that's a little more intimate so I could at least attempt to display a more finely honed Trump of mind I've been working on it now and trying to get it all finally cut and but you know it's almost always him in front of a bunch of coal miners we'd have so much coal well your children will be working in coal forever the you know crazy stuff in that five minute cold opening then this last time we did it not last week but a couple of weeks ago well we were in the shower try to make sure that the mana Ford wasn't wearing a wire yeah oh my god that's great well and you had your brilliant colleague your compete reott kate mckinnon everybody still have more material to work with after today sago you'll have more material to work with after today yes but I mean I think it's yeah oh she's incredible and so whenever they write something and we can kind of mix it up a little bit but you know you know the thing with Trump again is that like this past week we said you know something we will take a couple weeks off and let it build up a little bit because other people will appreciate it more and then I'm gonna go back in December into a couple shows but every week with some exceptions very few exceptions as I've said before Trump is the head writer of SNL he just comes up with this every week and there we are and know and to the point of inhabiting him and I I think this book does give as three-dimensional of a depiction of how his mind works as I'm proud of it in that way I think it's fun and it's entertaining and and and it makes those of us who aren't his base feel a community of pleasure about about it but but I think it does in a way that journalism can't give that kind of sense of like down this is probably what this guy but then I think he's trying to be coy and and I'll say this and that is you put a different cover on this book and you read this book and there's huge swatches of where you sit there and think this is Trump's but this is Trump's memoir oh this is how Trump talks and thanks me it's very close to we don't have to go detour very far from him to send him up we just regurgitate much of what he thinks they said yeah he's 10 and this is turned up to 11 well part of that is because it's not that we believe what he says but we can believe he said it so right right so in pieces I you know one of them probably giving a little bit too much away here but throughout the book his golf scores improve to to an insane degree yeah superhuman of course which he says he is level of what 18 holes in one in one outing so we know he could never do that but we certainly believe he would say that well so that's I think what makes it so plausible in a terrifying way thank you thank you what about getting ready to play him well now we go there and do the show we do a dress I mean for people who know us and now we do we talk about the sketch during the week and then of course things evolved with Trump and by Thursday sketches are out the window what a new sketch comes in and but come Friday night in the early evening we rehearsal in a while in Camden block and between maybe like 7:00 and 9:00 or 7:00 and 10:00 and then Saturday they were there all afternoon rewriting and camera blocking and rehearsing and then we do a full dress at 8 o'clock in front of a live audience which is a longer show that's a two-hour show so that Lorne can have 11 sketches to look at and see which one's performed best in front of the audience and then choose the 8 sketches that will be on the air along with commercials and updates so there's a full dress in front of an audience it has whittled down to the 90 minutes show at 11:30 and we do that and you know to me it's just if I do go with it a little bit and really push myself a little bit it's easier because you want a lot to be automatic and you have to think about it you were thinking about I don't want to do it now but it's like you're just sticking your mouth out as far as you can and just shoving your jaw as far as you can and arching your eyebrow and finding what line to rip it on and we were like I realized that the American people just aren't ready for somebody who's especially because I am like it's gonna rip and take off on one line you know you guys think these emotional farts that come flying out of self-love but the yeah we try to you know I've done this thing which is a huge caricature and I know that and but I think people kind of needed that I I didn't do this by his design I think people kind of needed that because he's so we over them everybody says the same thing he so beyond parody himself he parodies himself that were in order for us to get there we have to make it we defined a special place for all of it the sound of it and the look of it everything and you know as Alec says Alec insisted on describing himself as America's foremost mediocre Trump impersonator I mean there as he says himself I mean there are people who do you know spend all their time doing this precise version the fact that it is Alec Baldwin and it is Saturday Night Live and and and the the sheer Glee and and brilliance with which he he does this it makes it it's it's it's it's it is the Trump I like to stop doing it by the way it is the Trump for the ages I want him to go he was worried he'd be gone by now when we started doing this yeah well you know we went to this thing I went to the Robert F Kennedy Memorial they have their dinner called ripple of Hope and they had it last year right after the election I mean Kerry Kennedy and Ethel and all of the members of Ethel family who come out generations of them there are three four generations of them there many Kennedy's there to raise money for the Human Rights Center for the late Robert Kennedy and I go to that and one of the honorees was Biden and Biden was the outgoing vice president and he was received one of these awards and he got up there and behind him is a lot of imagery large panels and imagery of Kennedy and some of his some of his peers at that time and you know like anybody you you go with that and you really sit back a little while and just get very emotional you know about about you know what we had then or the potential for we had then and what we have now and so forth and but Biden said the greatest thing Biden said he said you think this is bad this guy winning this election you said you think this is bad he says our country's gonna survive this he said 1968 was bad is that that was a bad here King has killed Kennedy has killed the Chicago Convention Nixon pulls the steak out of his heart gets out of the coffin a being president the United States I mean and you just realized that I mean 68 that was a bad year and we survived that and and I keep telling myself we will survive this but just to undo the damage of two two departments alone to undo the damage this the psychic damage done by Pruitt and DeVos alone is gonna take years to clean up that mess well I mean part of what you're doing is helping with the psychic damage you know for those of us who feel like we're all in the midst of some horrible collective national trauma right you are comedy is of is a relief it's solace it's comfort it's there whatever you want to call it and I suspect that the fact that you have so gotten under his skin brings joy to tens of millions of people who otherwise others otherwise would be in terrible despair well he's doing his still sins once a year a desperately pathetic letter to my former partner it's by Graydon Carter saying look here's a picture of my hand my fingers aren't small and Graydon replies saying yes they are and he and he's not joking around he is he is among other things extraordinarily thin skin if and and now that he's back in the United States perhaps he can see this book and we can have a whole new chapter of I my skin and and I hope as I was told I cannot reveal my source but as I was told that his wife loves Saturday Night Live apparently she watches it and laughs and thinks it's the funniest thing in the world and me I really hope I can get a copy of this in her hands I can do that love this it's only six blocks away I'm telling you right after the show well you you couldn't you can have a book by Trump a memoir about Trump's first year without Trump talking about you so there is can I read this or do you want to read this more what page is it on it's right here page 219 here I've got it for you under the start where the start little star thing is I know which one of this he says this is one of my funny he's really funny 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 because Lauren Michaels is a Canadian immigrant may be legal maybe not so ungrateful must have terrible dirt on the executives at RCA and General Electric and Comcast and I have a great sense of humor but the hater Alec phone message Baldwin it's so bad at playing me like he's doing Aldo ray or somebody he and his brothers were like the Bowery Boys of Long Island famous losers or big mouths and no balls although the young one although the young ones Stephen is good people before you went born-again I'm told he was like the David Bowie of Massapequa great a perverts although that's true of many of the born-agains before they become entirely it was him on his brother that somehow made it better so many of you had questions so we'll take some of the audience questions now and some of them overlap so try to consolidate those that that did this is we touched on this but maybe this is a better put than I I put it to you what do you see is the greater purpose of parity in politics is that a form of protest escape or purely entertainment well I think all of those things parody satire done well are I think they're useful I don't think they are useful in the in the sense that politics itself is useful I maybe maybe Tina Fey's version of Sarah Palin you know cut her mark cut you know helped lose the election for John McCain I doubt it I I think the the the I think it is a way to see more clearly about certain characters and people I think it is it is a form to me a wonderful and necessary form of preaching to the choir because the choir needs preaching to to to not be miserable about about what they see happening in the world so I think it is I wouldn't say therapeutic even although it's that as well it's it's we all have our we all have our means and our ways of of reflecting and responding to these extraordinary situations and and and political satire has not been really a thing I've done humor and satire in various ways but but until this that really wasn't one of my specialities and and I know I think it's you know we feel here's a bunch of people who are who have had felt good better about the this guy and this situation because of Alex amazing performance of him and and and we want to share in some some version of resistance that isn't you know grim face and and that has a sense of Glee and human happiness about it but we're Tina did Palin so well and it had an effect on the election I think it's a part of the kind of sexist culture we live in now where you know she plays or is this kind of live dolt of a woman and that had an effect on the election you know you could just you could disagree with McCain's policies and a lot of things but McCain is a real person who's had a real career and it was a you know a war hero and so forth and I was kind of stunned that McCain lost myself because I thought he was everything that Americans would were gonna want to rally around and but where Tina did that and they had that effect on Palin and we did not have that effect on Trump you know men in this society tend to be given until recently maybe this is gonna change it men seem to be given a past when he says these vulgar things you know yeah it's uh many people many people have pushed this now that they want to get the they want to they don't want to just get sexual predators they want to get these sexual predator as far as they're concerned he's the big trophy that they want to bag and that's I certainly support that idea where he's guilty of those things but I think it was sad that that with all that I mean there were so many women in this country they would interview who'd sit there and be like you know so you know that's that's men men say stupid things men say awful things about women from time to time they don't really think that way they say it every now and then that doesn't mean that's who they are doesn't define them men are capable of saying very sexist things about women and so many women gave him the pass for that and I found that absolutely just mortifying really the Trump did well with women I thought that was just unthinkable but the no no and but but I think I think the other thing is that you know we need to do whatever we can to keep our wits about us because this is a very very dangerous time for the country I mean you've got people that are you know under the Goldwater law that they're not allowed to offer their opinions of psychiatrists and people who are mental health professionals are not allowed to offer their opinions and analysis and of people without examining them and yet you still have this woman I saw her on on Twitter and I come onto this this site where this Asian American woman was from the Yale School of Psychiatry I forget who she was I have to find it she's saying how according to the tenets of their their field you can bypass that Goldwater well if you really think that there's danger involved for someone I can go ahead and say I'm going to say that person is mentally unfit bigger they are clearly exhibiting that they're a danger to themselves or someone else if someone's hanging if Michael Jackson's hanging is kid off the balcony of the Parisian hotel we don't need to you know go to have a conference next door to realize that that's a stupid thing to do you know and I think that we need to keep a light on him every minute of the day all day long in every kind of way never they in everywhere well you know there's a sad question that that is I guess sort of related to what you're saying and it's to either or both of you have advice for those of us in the audience who must serve / work for this administration any words of wisdom or encouragement would be appreciated from a civil servant hailing from deep inside the swamp and it's it's a serious question I mean if you look at this the the evisceration of the State Department and the political pressure at the EPA now the just name exactly no longer a civil servant I mean but it's a serious question it's it's I I don't envy such a person but I mean we're all in this together I mean this person is is is miserable in her or his own way perhaps made more miserable about a job she or he probably loves so I mean I think for someone like this reading a funny book that gives you a sense what this guy is like and if he were ever to read it himself would either be would either thing civil service but I think that if people have a I think I try to tend to think of this very simply that is you've got a family if you're a woman and you're married to a man and having kids you're married to another woman you have kids with you if you have a spouse and a family or whatever your situation is you have an obligation to try to hold on to your job you know no one's going to fault you for that no one's going to fault you for having a job in the you know unless you're Kellyanne Conway but even in the permanent force of workers here oh and then these administration's come and go we can't really fault you for that but I just you know I think that all the more reason I want us to see change come because I think a lot of people are you know this is an America this is an American people whenever I go places people always have dual impressions of Americans Americans are you know jelly donut eating latte sipping SUV driving they've got every health problem in the world and I and then I turn around I go then there's another bunch of Americans I know who are up at 4:30 in the morning running around the reservoir in Central Park they're going to the gym they work 12 hours a day I mean in my mind the preponderance of people in this country are among the hardest-working people I've ever met Americans work hard Americans are hard workers and whether you got a white collar job or a blue-collar job they're hard workers and I just thought we'd love to have a president who is more like us you know yeah I mean you guys both you know obviously you're disturbed by Trump as many many many of us are I mean Alec you came here to study political science you were gonna be a lawyer I think and then you went off into acting but sort of maybe you've come full circle you're very involved politically you care a lot about politics obviously you do - what was the foundation for for your political energy would you say let's talk about you tell them all about you where are you from we went to school okay well long ago know in a small house in Omaha Nebraska I was my grew up in a house of obscene conservative Republicans which were a numerous class of people back in the 60s when I was growing up and and you know they weren't conspiracists and they and they as far as I know didn't approve of pedophiles running for the US Senate and and and and if if climate change were on the table they would have probably believed that it was real they were great Republicans and and and and at one point at age 13 I had a a giant poster of Richard Nixon on my wall and then three years later I was the Nebraska state coordinator for George McGovern so that's you know that was that was that was the time and and so no I and I I went to college like a like a little bit thinking of some kind of politics thing maybe writing but then I became then I got on the Harvard Lampoon er in my life was ruined for politics and I just became a among other things a humorous writer but so no I mean politics I've written about politics III got a job at Time magazine where where they I got to write about politics and so I've cared about it but it hit and I have my feelings of the citizen but I but politics is it has not really until this until the last year two years been as central to my life as as it is as it feels right now it seems like the 60s were a crucible for you both and certainly for me and my age group and maybe the way Trump will be a crucible for however many of you out there are silver lining of the hill galvanized people's political passions I think you know I mean I I remember when I was living in my apartment building on the Upper West Side and Barack Obama came into the building with a small contingent of people to go to some guy's house who I know who's a big Democratic fundraiser this is during the primaries and he walked in and he nodded to me said uh mr. Baldwin and I said senator Obama and I knew who he was and I was shocked that he knew who I was and I not and he walks into the lobby and I thought under my brother thought good luck now listen she's gonna dribble you up and down Pennsylvania Avenue she's gonna kick your ass you know because I was very enamored of the Clintons I knew the Clintons tangentially and Bill Clinton was somebody or whatever I was around him whenever I was around him he would stop he put his hand on my shoulder and he gave me like a 10-minute lecture we were at the Kennedy Center school the Kennedy School of Government he'd share something with me he knew I wanted to not have small talk you sit there sit let me tell you what's going on the career what you really need to know about career is really what's going on you just tell me something about he give me like a little some factoids gave me a little basket like somebody give me some soaps and some bath salts bundle give me a beautiful little basket of ideas about politics I seem at the Elton John AIDS Foundation thing with my with my wife just now and he puts his hand on my show you guys let me tell you something if the Democratic Party believes that this is gonna be resolved that we're gonna get everything back by impeaching this guy they're wrong we got to dig down and get back to who we are and commit ourselves to what we stand for and an impeachment isn't gonna solve this he starts lecturing me about what were the Democrats have to do and no I mean it was it was it's thrilling believe me and the the the when when Obama won the first time I was kind of engaged in some races with local races where I live on Long Island and some in the city I did a little campaigning for de Blasio and then when Obama took had his second term you know right after that I had met my wife and she's pregnant for our first child I got remarried and my wife proceeded to have three children in three years and three months we had three children in a row and I kind of checked out of everything Irish Irish triplets I just checked out I mean I think people would say to me you know Obama this and this and this Supreme Court decision I was like you know yeah yeah that's great I'm chasing my kid around the house all day so I checked out of that which was uncharacteristic for me and now I find with where we are now is I'm kind of we committed to finding some way to encourage people to participate more I ran into a woman on the street a young woman I went to an event I went to go meet a political consultant who's going to help me write a speech I have to give in front of an organization it's a big big gathering and Iowa and I went to his office and I came out there's three young people in the lobby one guy and a woman and a young african-american woman who was just this absolutely the most charismatic people I've ever my life and I said you're here studying politics she was with some think-tank they have an internship and I said are you gonna run for office and she said I would like to I think I would like to have I'm not quite sure but I think maybe I have that in me I said you must run for office we need more people to run because what's the problem with politics in this country is these people all have stickers on them like they're NASCAR drivers they're all owned and bought and sold by somebody and we need to open the windows and open the doors and get some fresh air and then after the new faces in American politics I mean there are this just the last election in Virginia and elsewhere there were so much [Applause] polenin Montana a lot of news yeah tell them where you're speaking in Iowa here in Washington you know this will start rumors going to Iowa I'm sorry the Iowa Democratic Committee has their Jefferson Jackson dinner November 27 on the keynote speaker will be in New Hampshire then we can tease him about Iowa well okay so you obviously can impersonate Clinton so what is your favorite impersonation who is your favorite person to impersonate I leave my children probably my son I'm one of those people I'm like I'm so in love with my kids it's really pathetic I'm I love my little kids great my great perk of doing this with him is getting to hear him do both obscure 1940s actors that I'd say yeah that's perfect pretending I know who is doing but but but also for instance III we spent an entire lunch together I had just kept insisting that he keep doing Marlon Brando because oh he spent time with Brando and and that's I but my son is he always says to me now he's like no work data no work he's is a perk no don't go to verb data so I'm I'm obsessed with my kids I've got three little kids and my wife or having another one my wife was giving me my next April I'll turn 60 and for my 60th birthday my wife has given me another baby isn't that amazing isn't it we're gonna have a baby when I'm 60 60 years young so it's okay okay so here's one as I said before I can't resist this joke my friend said to me you know we all have three sons have a daughter and I'll have three sons because we're having a boy and my friend said to me who's similar in age and on a similar path he's remember one thing but the time your sons are old enough to sneak out of the house and do things you don't approve oh you'll be deaf anyways it won't even go there is that okay so there were several about getting ready for the show and so this kind of sums it up how long does the makeup take and how do they makes felt you look fat why were these fat well I haven't always been spelt in the last few years but I've been trying that when you see me get up and this is over I injured my legs I'm moving a little poorly but the we put the fat pants on and I guess maybe they wanted me to maybe pad my upper body but getting in and out of that was tricky with the clothes so yeah I don't think we really really worried well I've told them once I wanted to kind of underline that and I want him to get a guy that was a really who I don't want to say obese but I wanted to get an actor a double and I wanted me to come like you're the camera and I would walk up toward a shower and then I started to take my robe off and step into the shower and then there'd be a wall and I'd stop you wouldn't see this and another guy would step in for the silhouette and he be this really really like garlic bulb man you know I begged them to do that you begged me to do this and this by begged you yes I begged you to I'm obsessed with having Trump in the shower okay all right well you're talking about kids so this is from Adam store in an our loan Emerson grade 9 can you give us an executive order canceling our homework assignment that is due tomorrow I don't know and then there were a couple about 30 rock one is how did your work on 30 rock help shape your ability to portray the President of the United States today and the other words do you think Jack would have voted for Trump everybody says that everybody says that I think that you know 30 rock really was the greatest experience of my life I never I'll never have a better job I'll never work with better people that was the most fun I've ever had you know when the show goes along I mean all actors complain either way when they don't have a job they want to go to work and I'm gonna go to work like what are we getting out of here I want to go to dinner with my friends and all they whine about is their condition and when I did the show after like three or four seasons we got to season five and as the case and as is the case with several of those types of shows they hit a bit of a patch and the writing was a bit weaker after they won the Emmy you know three years in a row whatever was and things were really good season two three four season five comes in it was not great and I said to myself I was signed for six I said I'm gonna do next year and I'm out here when this is over we're done I've got other things to do and I was appreciative but I was pretty final I'm out of here let me come to season six and it's a Renaissance everything's funny as hell again and I go sign me up for seven eight nine right now I'm gonna stay here for a while but by then Tina had two kids and I think she was really wiped out because she was exact producing and she created the show when she was the head writer and she was acting and I mean she really really worked very very hard or was it was a amazing to watch but people have come to us in that kind of Will and Grace reboot and these shows that are being redone if we would redo the show we would reboot the show yeah I don't know I tend to doubt it but I think I definitely thought if they did a spinoff about my character I thought he would probably have to have you know a constant interfacing with the Trump administration yeah a lot of those one-sided phone calls around McDonald you know and you see we wouldn't hear the other end of the phone but he would be a kind of Donna he would be kind of guy that Trump would use as kitchen kitchen kappa yeah did he vote for him I think that he didn't I think he didn't throw the lever for either one yeah I mean because God knows he would never vote for Hillary Clinton yeah that was one of my favorite things was when when a Rip Torn played my boss Don Geiss and he told me I was anointed to be the head of the company and then he has a coma he doesn't he goes into a coma and he has no chance to tell everyone else at GE that I'm the the the the the The Anointed One and he's in a coma and he's laying there I'm trying to revive him from the coma and I'm standing over good trembling sir-sir Hillary Clinton is president sir what's to see if he's spasms in some way or he can hear me and you know no Hillary Clinton was just that would that would have been a nightmare for Donna gate I think in my mind Alec doesn't Alec loves Donaghey too much I think he Donaghey is like a younger smarter more focused Donald Trump in a lot of ways actually I'm devastated to hear you say I don't want to play him anymore but it is it is interesting that these did you sort of migrate to these characters well you know weighted the difference is that it's a profound difference to mean I mean that none of this matters for the purposes of this conversation but in terms of acting and all that other kind of crap is that we did did the TV show Donaghy wanted to have a good time Donaghy wanted that you want to go on run boats and yachts and young women he was dating anyone to have nice restaurants and the guy there's that wonderful moment where we did this thing that Tina and I kind of not invented but we came you know we pushed this idea we would be staring out over the balcony of Rockefeller Plaza often to the end of the ether and the camera will be shooting us and into the building on foot from the terrace and I look out the window I have a glass of wine in my hand and she had a glass of wine and it's nighttime and Tina would say kind of mean work and everything is work and all he did was work when she's lamenting all that she was pretty soon no one's gonna no one's gonna want to see me naked she'd say and I had to I don't even look around the class to want I go well you make enough money you pay someone to see you you know Donaghey when you let anything stand in his way we're gonna have a good time whereas with Trump it's the opposite Trump never has a good time it's why we play him the whole root of it with SNL is to make him as miserable as possible right I mean I was interested in that because that came out and something that you guys have written or talked about somewhere that really the the the essence of him we always think of him as a bully and a narcissist and egos maniac inaud which he is racist homophobe whatever but he's really miserable that's okay you said so secure and unhappy and I think I think that my view is that that just seen him from afar watching him from the par three years that wasn't Oh that's to me that's the difference back in the 80s and 90s he seemed to kind of be having a good time with John tear yeah he just to me he's reached a point where he's he's never happy and realizes now that he's got this biggest brass ring of all because the other thing I always thought about him is I've never known of anybody who has such a voracious need for attention as he does now he's got he won the prize he's got more attention than any human maybe in human history and he's still miserably unhappy and so like I I think his misery is is probably more pronounced today than it has ever been well we're here we're close to running out of time I want to just ask one thing and then end with one other question from the audience but obviously this collaboration worked very well because you're sitting here together and you had fun I think working on it so another collaboration here my dear I was actually sneeze it out there into the ether now it's in the realm of possibility okay well that people can Anderson in Baldwin have a future this is Patrick excellent good to hear okay last question last way he does all the writing and I get all the laughs do this stupid the perfect airship okay so here's the last question Baldwin Fey 2020 well I mean I it's funny I went to school here and I go to my I went to school here and I went to my dorm my freshman year 1976 when I went to school here and I was in thirst and I was in the zoo I was in Thurston and I woke in my room I'm in a six-man suite the other three other guys are there I'm like where you from Jeff he's like I'm from Cherry Hill New Jersey I said though I said what are you here to study I'm gonna study politics I'm gonna be the President of the United States I was like well really and where are you from Tom I'm from Worcester Mass he'd said I'm here to study political science and I'm gonna be the president you know everybody came here to get into politics or they were very very pumped about American politics back then when I went to school here they had disbanded the George Washington University Student Association during the demonstrations in the 70s and in the fall of 76 or the spring of 76 in the preceding year before I got here they had reconstituted the government and elected this guy Joel ammonia who was I can't believe I remember this but Joel Amano who was the first renewed president the renewed Student Association back then I had two roommates my sophomore year who were who were Iranian and their families lived in Tehran and they would never do they would burn the Shah in effigy in Lafayette Park and you'd have people protesting screaming at the top of their lungs down but the sha sha is fascist butchered the protesting protesting the the students would confide in me that the SAVAK had members of the secret police hidden in the classrooms to monitor them to watch them so they didn't get too political and then then the Shahs overthrown and my roommate comes back to school the following year and and he who would be crying he'd be in tears that I know can speak of shock I know can speak of sure my family is in Tehran I know can speak of shot the following year he's like Shah is fascist Bucher is screaming you know so happy that was a different Washington that was when they had bone Appetit anybody remember bone Appetit that god bless you and then GW wouldn't bought every you know dry cleaner Chinese Laundry hoagie shop liquor store they bought everything ripped it down built up the big GW real estate portfolio when I went to school here was a different Washington well I'll give you one last example when I went to school here used to go out to Herndon or rest and to get pumpkins to car for Halloween there were no houses out there where no houses there Herndon and rest of them were farms as far as the eye could see go buy vegetables there and bring him back at the time it'll make dinner somewhere so I went here was a very different school but in that time I've moved on and had a different career and got married again I'm you know love my wife more than anything and we have three little kids another one coming to run for office is something that I want to do but it a doesn't seem really practical with my lifestyle now with my children and number two I don't I'm not quite sure the Trump has left it open for non-traditional candidates to move but really I mean people people who are is the pendulum that I swing the other way and people are gonna want people with real bona fide credentials as the head of a State House a governor or whatever I don't know if if people post Trump will want someone again who's never held elective well I mean I care do I think I'd be a good president yeah I think I'd be a good president I think I would number one I'd enjoy it I wouldn't be in the back of a car get me a chocolate cake from the hotel I'm so depressed you know when that would be me at all I would enjoy that window on the world you know and try to get things done but we're gonna have a new mayor of New York starting 2021 so I maybe maybe well I just know that I'm not quite sure what the result of Trump will be a elect electoral politics was yeah well we have elected a comedian to the Senate who is a very good senator [Applause] anyway we have to end this unfortunately now but I want to say thank you thank you very much this is a public service you

Channel: Politics and Prose

Views: 30,965

Rating: 4.7058825 out of 5

Keywords: P&P TV, Washington DC, Politics and Prose, Authors, Books, Events, Literature, Alec Baldwin, Kurt Andersen, SNL, Saturday Night Live, Donald Trump, Trump, jumor, parody, Studio 360, NPR

Id: 5zuH1taRdM0

Length: 69min 6sec (4146 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 17 2017