Trump impersonator Alec Baldwin thinks Trump deserves an Emmy

While promoting his new memoir, Nevertheless, Alec Baldwin called Trump “the head writer of Saturday Night Live.”

Alec Baldwin’s Trump impersonation on SNL is as an evocative of the 2016 election season and new administration as any emails meme or Sean Spicer soundbite.

As a result, Trump has become something of a go-to topic for Baldwin as he makes the rounds promoting both a new memoir, Nevertheless, and movie, The Boss Baby. Speaking to Arena Stage artistic director Molly Smith at George Washington University on Wednesday night, Baldwin gave credit where credit was due. Trump, he said, deserves an Emmy.

According to the Hill, Baldwin joked, “Trump is the head writer of Saturday Night Live. Him and [White House press secretary Sean] Spicer. They’re going to win an Emmy this year.”

Expanding on both Trump and his own politics, Baldwin explained that he remembered Trump as a “kind of strange, flying Dutchman-like figure in the New York social world.” He was not, Baldwin would say, an honored or desired dinner guest.

Baldwin himself has developed a reputation as a politically outspoken activist, particularly for campaign finance reform. It’s something he believes has hurt his career.

"There’s a large group of people, they don’t want in their mind to have their entertainment experience sullied by people’s political beliefs…And they’re like, ‘Alec Baldwin why can’t you just play 18 holes, come to the clubhouse, and have a sandwich and a beer? And the whales are going to save themselves, boy! And all the poor people are going to be taken care of. And the global warming will work itself out.’I feel that in my lifetime that special interests and the way that money performs in politics has gotten us to the point where the government doesn’t do anywhere near what we need the government to do."

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As for whether than activism could turn to political ambition, Baldwin doesn’t hold onto what was once a childhood dream. While he may have reminisced about presidential aspirations in a 1989 interview – admitting “the older I get, the less preposterous the idea seems” – he told the GW crowd he has no interest now.

Unless he changes his mind, we’ll have to settle for SNL.