Alec Baldwin teases presidential run: 'Beating Trump would be so easy'
Could Alec Baldwin, who has played President Donald Trump on "Saturday Night Live," have his eye on the White House? Credit: Getty Images/Jamie McCarthy
Alec Baldwin, who won an Emmy Award for spoofing President Donald Trump on "Saturday Night Live," is teasing the idea of running for president himself.
"If I ran for President, would you vote for me?" the Massapequa-raised actor, 61, tweeted Tuesday. "I won't ask you for any $. And I promise I will win. Beating Trump would be so easy. So easy. So easy."
About 25 minutes later he added, "These tweets save me millions in polling."
A host of Trump supporters reacted negatively, many posting personal insults. Trump, who often has lambasted the actor for his "SNL" parodies, did not comment on Twitter. It was unclear how serious Baldwin was being, and his spokeswoman told Newsday the actor was not commenting.
Baldwin has spoken offhandedly for years about running for political office, telling Interview magazine in 1989 that before discovering his vocation for acting, he had attended college in Washington, D.C., for three years, intending to go on to law school. "I wanted to be President of the United States," he said. "I really did. The older I get, the less preposterous the idea seems."
He told The New York Times in 2006, in response to a hypothetical question of what his ideal office would be, that, "If I ever ran for anything, the thing I would like to be is governor of New York." When asked for his qualifications, Baldwin pointed to bodybuilder-actor turned California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and said, "I'm Tocqueville compared to [him]." The 19th century French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville wrote the 1835 book "Democracy in America,” a still-influential political text.
In August 2011, following speculation he might run for New York City mayor, Baldwin told the Times that due to contractual obligations to the NBC comedy "30 Rock," for which he won two Emmys, and because of his desire to obtain a master's degree in politics and government first, he would sit out the 2013 election. He reiterated in a Bloomberg TV interview in April 2012 that he remained open to the possibility.
Besides Schwarzenegger and former actor Ronald Reagan, who served as U.S. president from 1981 to 1989, numerous entertainers have been elected to high office, including singer and California Rep. Sonny Bono, comedian and Minnesota Sen. Al Franken, "The Love Boat" actor and Iowa Rep. Fred Grandy, actor and Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, and pro wrestler and Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura.
