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Tina Fey, David Letterman discuss Trump’s SNL feud with Alec Baldwin

By Hector Cruz

NEW YORK - MAY 7: Tina Fey takes off her dress during her last appearance on the CBS Late Show with David Letterman, May 7, 2015 in New York. (Photo by John Paul Filo/CBS via Getty Images)
NEW YORK - MAY 7: Tina Fey takes off her dress during her last appearance on the CBS Late Show with David Letterman, May 7, 2015 in New York. (Photo by John Paul Filo/CBS via Getty Images) /
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Tina Fey says Donald Trump’s Twitter spats with Alec Baldwin are “beneath a president” in an interview with David Letterman.

Tina Fey sat down with retired Late Show host David Letterman in the latest issue of the Hollywood Reporter for a wide-ranging interview covering such topics as parenting, comedy, TV vs. films, and Donald Trump’s ongoing Twitter feud with Alec Baldwin, who portrays the president-elect on SNL.

Fey brought up the topic of the election right at the start of their conversation after Letterman claimed that he was “full of apprehension and self-loathing.” She suggested that perhaps if he was still on TV, he could help the country figure out how to “proceed with any kind of dignity” after electing a man who’s made fun of handicapped and overweight people. She also advised folks to watch the film Idiocracy and to read Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl’s autobiography, warning that artists should not follow her examples of going along with whatever their country’s leader wants them to do.

The writer-actress went to decry the current environment’s lack of civility and misogyny, which has gotten worse over the past two years, particularly online where “despicable” online trolls are “able to be awful to each other without having to be in the same room,” including “our glorious president-elect who can’t muster the dignity of a seventh-grader.”

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“At one level, it just makes me feel sick for the state of the world because it’s so beneath a president, but also my feeling is: “You think you’re good at being a jerk on Twitter? You will now face the grandmaster of being a jerk on Twitter,” Fey said of Trump’s feud with Baldwin, her former 30 Rock co-star.

The pair have traded barbs on the social media platform several times in the past few weeks due to what the Republican called a “mean-spirited” and “biased” imitation of him on the NBC program. Meanwhile, Baldwin has stated that he’ll stop playing Trump if he releases his tax returns.

Fey went on to call Trump a “chump of a manager” for demanding an apology from the cast of Hamilton for their treatment of his running mate Mike Pence at a recent production, explaining that SNL boss Lorne Michaels taught her that you should never ask for something that you know you’re not going to get, calling it “bad management skills.”

While Letterman allowed Fey to do most of the talking, the comedian was on record as being sharply critical of Trump before the election, labeling him a “badly damaged human being” at the New Yorker festival in October. He also became a part of the presidential campaign when Hillary Clinton’s team made an ad using footage from one of Trump’s Late Show appearances where the host mocked the businessman for making his suits and ties overseas.

Next: Tina Fey defends Jimmy Fallon’s Donald Trump Tonight Show interview

The interview is part of the magazine’s 2016 Women in Entertainment Power 100 issue in conjunction with Fey receiving THR’s Sherry Lansing Leadership Award last week. The honor has previously gone to such famous women as Oprah Winfrey, Shonda Rhimes and Jane Fonda.

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