Alec Baldwin has earned an Emmy and widespread adoration for his impression of Donald Trump, which debuted on Saturday Night Live last fall. But he’s also got at least one concern about his acclaimed work: what if all his mockery is actually making the president’s actions easier to stomach?
That’s the question the actor posed to guest Bernie Sanders on his WNYC podcast, Here’s the Thing, on Tuesday.
“In terms of Trump, do you think we’re kind of making him a little too cuddly and a little too funny and we’re taking people’s mind off something really more serious?” asked Baldwin. Sanders didn’t really answer the question, replying instead, “I think what we have to focus on on Trump is what he is doing.”
But this question—whether his impression accidentally humanizes someone he’s actively trying to tear down—has evidently been gnawing at Baldwin for some time. Last winter, Baldwin told The New York Times about an e-mail he received from a friend after the election, sarcastically thanking him for getting Trump voted into office. “I do recognize that that is a possibility,” the actor said, before explaining that the show’s post-election agenda had to be focused on “dial[ing] it up as much as we can.”
True, the show did actively amp up its Trump critiques after the candidate’s surprise win—but Baldwin’s worries may be valid still, considering Saturday Night Live precedent. Look, for example, at the profound effect of Will Ferrell’s genial George W. Bush impression, which helped convince legions of Americans that the Texas governor was an idiot they’d love to get a beer with; Ferrell himself thinks his popular impersonation could have influenced voters to choose Bush over Al Gore and John Kerry in 2000 and 2004. Tina Fey’s “I can see Russia from my house!”-spouting Sarah Palin made the former vice-presidential candidate lovable to some degree as well.
Similarly, Baldwin’s Trump is a buffoon, but a cartoonish one—and watching him could lull viewers into believing that the real Trump couldn’t do anything truly dangerous, like walk the U.S. to the brink of nuclear war or completely botch efforts to aid Puerto Rico in the wake of a devastating hurricane.
That said, Lorne Michaels did consciously trade former Trump impressionist Darrell Hammond for Baldwin last year because he wanted to capture a scarier side of Trump. “I needed another force, on an acting level, to have the power that Trump was embodying then,” Michaels recently told The Washington Post. “The Darrell Trump . . . it wasn’t the Trump that had gotten darker. It was the Trump from The Apprentice.” Hammond says he played Trump as a “genius empath”; Baldwin’s version is surlier, crueler, and much, much dumber.
When reached for comment, Baldwin said that he was sorry about how his ascent meant Hammond got pushed out of the show—and added, “PS . . . He can have the thing back whenever he likes, as far as I’m concerned.”
