Alec Baldwin hints at retiring his Donald Trump SNL impression

Alec Baldwin has hinted that he might soon retire his potentially Emmy-winning portrayal of Donald Trump on SNL.

Last year, with the presidential election cycle just ramping up, Saturday Night Live gifted us with Larry David as Bernie Sanders. It was throwback comedy that we thought would be lightning in a bottle, but it actually opened the door to even more celebrity cameos.

While David’s role as Sanders was phenomenal, it paved the way for an even better one. There’s a decent chance that Alec Baldwin — who hosted the show this season for the 17th time in his career — will win an Emmy for his role as Donald Trump.

As if Baldwin’s career couldn’t get even more illustrious, he’s added this legendary Trump impression to his legacy. But while it’s one of the best things going for SNL at the moment, our time with this character might be limited.

This week, Baldwin hinted at possibly retiring his impression of Trump. Here’s what he had to say about possible Trump retirement to Mario Lopez on Extra this week:

"“There’s a style the president has to have, and I think the maliciousness of this White House is a little — has people very worried, which I why I’m not going to do it much longer, by the way, that whole impersonation,. I don’t think how much more people can take it, you know.”"

Before we unpack this, can we take a moment admire the fact that this bit of possible earth shattering SNL news was brought to us by A.C. Slater? That might be the most perfect representation of the world we’re all living in right now.

As far as Baldwin retiring, he’s far from definitive. He wasn’t announcing that he was stepping away from the role but we should have expected something like this sooner or later. The idea that Baldwin would play Trump for four full years was a bit foolish to believe, as he had other things to do. It wouldn’t be the first time that different SNL actors played the same president during his tenure and it won’t be the last.

Both Will Ferrell and Jason Sudeikis played George W. Bush while Fred Armisen and Jay Pharoah played Barack Obama. Darrell Hammond and Phil Hartman split the Bill Clinton presidency and we’ve already seen a total of three SNL actors — Taran Killam and the aforementioned Hammond — play Trump.

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It would be sad to see Baldwin go, but it’s a reality we might have to get used to.