by Alec Baldwin
Fine. But nobody else can be Trump! If I acted “presidential” all the time, I’d start losing my special powers, kind of like Superman if there were kryptonite powder mixed into all the paint everywhere in the White House—not enough to kill him but just enough to weaken him and turn him into a normal human. If I acted “presidential” all the time, the press and the haters would pretend not to hate me as much, but the people who really love Trump would start loving him less. Trust me on this.
“One of the most effective press conferences I’ve ever seen”—that’s what the brilliant and legendary Rush Limbaugh, the No. 1 nonfake media anchorman in America, said about my first solo press conference as president. Thank you, Rush! But as always, the ups, as great as they are, only last a little while. Of course the rest of the media, the fake media, the lying media, the nasty un-American media said my press conference wasn’t “presidential.”
They say the way I tweet “isn’t presidential.” What they mean is that presidents aren’t supposed to tell the straight truth the way I do—about crooked and disgusting Hillary, about dopey Obama, about the illegal “popular vote,” about the illegal leaks and disgusting fake news and witch hunts. As I say, acting “presidential” is so easy—like on Twitter, when I want, I can go for several days at a time using no capital letters and being completely positive and nice, so positive and nice. If I want.
But I’m not dumb. I see what the Democrats and the media are up to when they start saying, “Oh, look, he’s being presidential.” It’s like they’re trying to get me drunk, seduce me, make me their puppet. They want me to take my eye off the ball—balls, plural, so many balls to juggle as president, important balls. Like after my great speech to Congress, they wanted me to ignore that they forced Jeff Sessions to “recuse” himself from the Russia hoax. But I didn’t fall for their trick. Instead, I just picked up my phone and tweeted the truth. It means they don’t think I’m being “presidential” again, because I’m showing my true self. I’m Trump. I only know how to do things one way, my way, the Trump way.
VOICE MEMO: Presidential to-do list
Song, “DIDN’T FALL FOR THEIR TRICK / JUST PICKED UP MY PHONE AND TWEETED THE TRUTH / ONE WAY, MY WAY, THE TRUMP WAY,” © 2017 by Donald J. Trump.
JEFF IS A LITTLE ON THE WEAK SIDE, I’M AFRAID, AND FOR ALL I KNOW HE’S GUILTY OF SOMETHING. TRUMP IS NOT GUILTY OF ANYTHING, OR WEAK.
I’m not going to lie. For a day after my big speech to Congress, I was on top of the world. People said it was the best speech ever made in that chamber, a hole in one, a grand-slam home run, like being intimate with Ursula Andress from Dr. No and Princess Di at the same time. I’d convinced some of the sick haters that I deserved respect.
But those were the same people who pushed Jeff Sessions to recuse, recuse, recuse, which would make Comey, and the FBI literally out of control—so the day after the speech to Congress I called Comey, I’m very nice, very respectful. “Mr. President,” he said, “I can’t tell you you’re being investigated.” I took that as a no, I wasn’t being investigated, but then made him confirm it because he’s a sneaky lawyer. When I told him again how important loyalty is in any organization, including the government, especially the government, he refused to get on board. And then the next day Jeff did recuse. Which was so wrong, because it made Jeff look weak and guilty. Which makes the president look weak and guilty. Jeff is a little on the weak side, I’m afraid, and for all I know he’s guilty of something. Trump is not guilty of anything, or weak.
VOICE MEMO: Presidential to-do list
Song, “HOLE IN ONE, GRAND-SLAM HOME RUN / PRINCESS DI, HONEY RIDER, BOTH AT ONCE,” © 2017 by Donald J. Trump. Kanye “rap” song???
The afternoon Jeff recused while I was grabbing a snack (chicken tenders) in the restaurant in the West Wing basement—“eating your stress again,” Ivanka always says—I ran into Mike Pence. Hadn’t talked to him for quite a while, so I unloaded, told him I felt like hurting somebody. He smiled and nodded like the dads on TV shows when I was a kid, who always seemed so fake, or like the one “nice” coach we had at military school. “Well, Mr. President,” he finally said, “the wiles of the devil can be seductive.” I didn’t know where he was going with that, so I stood and said “Amen, Mr. Vice President,” which always makes Mike happy.
Back upstairs in the Oval, Reince tried to cheer me up, too. He knew my feelings about the White House servants—that except for Rodrigo, I felt I couldn’t completely trust them because they don’t work for me and can’t really be fired on my say-so.
“Piece of good news, Mr. President. I found out you can terminate the chief usher anytime you want. She’s not civil service.”
“The Jamaican, the lady butler?” I asked. “Yeah, right. Maybe I ‘can,’ legally, but I’m sure Obama put her in there just to mess with me. She reminds me of Whitney Houston’s mother. Did you know Whitney was my friend? Went to her wedding. I’d heard about the drugs, but I never knew she was broke. No wonder, though, with that terrible, terrible reality show she and the husband did, on cable, for peanuts, looked like crap. So sad. I was invited to the funeral. I couldn’t make it. You know at the inauguration ball I had the band play ‘I Will Always Love You’ because she and I were close, right?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“But the butler, you know, the Jamaican, she managed Ritz-Carltons, she might be one of the . . . what did you say it was?A quarter? How many of the blacks voted for Trump?”
“Eight percent, Mr. President.”
“I think she could be one of those. Maybe you can look it up, confidentially. It’d be good to know if she was.”
NOW THAT I’VE BEEN LIVING in the White House for more than two months, including one of the last four weekends, I finally figured out one of my problems with it, aside from the major one of not owning it. In Trump Tower, it’s like ninety seconds from the penthouse to The Trump Organization headquarters, straight shot, fast elevator, fantastic, almost like I just think myself from my bedroom to my office. In the White House, it’s like some crazy obstacle course getting from where I live to where I work. The private elevator is small and slow and oldfashioned, European in the not-very-nice way. You may not realize that the West Wing, where the Oval Office is, is a whole separate building like half a block away, and walking outside on that colonnade, which can get extremely windy, right after spending a lot of time with the hair spray and combs and so forth, is just asking for trouble.
So last weekend when I stayed in Washington, my great African American Secret Service agent Anthony and I came up with a visionary solution to the problem. We plotted a new presidential route to work, a totally private route, the special Trump route. You know Get Smart, the original TV series from when we were kids? It’s like the opening sequence of that, except very serious instead of funny, so more like a modern Batman movie if Bruce Wayne were elected president—which by the way is a great idea and hereby my copyrighted concept. So now every morning I’m in Washington, after I’ve had my seven pieces of crispy bacon, my American, non-Muslim version of Obamaʼs seven almonds a day, and I’ve finished watching Fox & Friends and the failing bad shows on other channels during the ads on Fox, I take the elevator all the way down to the basement, then immediately step into what looks like a storage closet—but it’s actually the secret entrance to a long underground tunnel to the West Wing. (They built it right before Bill Clinton got elected. I’ve heard he brought Monica down there, and I’m trying to get Anthony, my special agent, to confirm with his older buddies that Hillary used it for her own monkey business with her Middle Eastern assistant who married the pervert Anthony Weiner, which I’ve also heard.) At the very end of the tunnel is a staircase that leads up to a secret sliding door that opens— abracadabra, there I am, right between my Oval Office restroom and the Oval itself, my hair totally perfect, ready to command. Getting there that way feels very, very presidential. We’re looking int
o having music piped into the tunnel, such as the Mission: Impossible theme, and also installing a moving walkway, like the ones at airports—which would be great, because then during the trip each morning I could get more tweeting done. Same thing when I knock off for the evening—as I’m doing right now, walking out of the Oval—good night, Hopester!—as I give dictation to Mitzi, writing this, my president book, making every second count.
I probably forgot to mention that I named my phone computer. I did that after I visited Ivanka and Jared’s new house the other night. (Rental, five fireplaces, plain decor like they prefer, very nice deal, owner’s from Chile but he’s a billionaire, like me, and has big mining interests here, so he loves America.) I noticed Jared was shouting orders to somebody, but the babysitters and cook were nowhere in sight. “Who’s Alexa?” Turns out it’s their Amazon computer—like Siri in all the Apple phones, and Cortana in Sean Spicer’s phone. The desk in the Oval Office has its own special name, Resolute, so I decided the president’s phone needed its own one-of-a-kind name, too. I picked Mitzi. It’s an M-word, like all of the Trumps’ Secret Service code names, and it’s the name of the first girl I ever kissed, who said I had bad breath and then after ninth grade either moved to Manhattan or died, I forget which, but—whoa, Steve! You startled me.
IT’S THE NAME OF THE FIRST GIRL I EVER KISSED, WHO SAID I HAD BAD BREATH AND THEN AFTER NINTH GRADE EITHER MOVED TO MANHATTAN OR DIED, I FORGET WHICH.
I just came through the secret “closet” in the basement, and here’s Steve Bannon waiting for me. He and my other Irishmen— General Kelly and Don McGahn—are about to take off with me for a guys’ weekend at Mar-a-Lago. Plus Wilbur Ross, who’s also Catholic and bought and sold half of Ireland the last few years. Hey, and now here’s my fantastic Kosher Steve, who’s flying with us—Kosher Steve is what I call Stephen Miller, who used to work for Sessions and also for Bannon at Breitbart. He’s like Jared but scary—you are, man!—in a great way, a Roy Cohn way, he’s even got Roy’s eyes.
I just found out something very, very bad. I can’t reveal exactly how I found out. But I’m president, and therefore I’m told a lot of secret things, very important secrets, many of them terrible secrets. I’m told that six weeks ago, the failing New York Times accidentally revealed this secret, and an extensive summary has just been posted on Breitbart. Wow.
Shooting another amazing round at my fabulous Trump International Golf Club in West Palm (which has the highest elevation of any golf course in Florida, by the way) while an aide briefs me on the global warming hoax.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE UNDERSTAND
The birds are starting to make their noises. So many birds in Palm Beach.
The sun isn’t up yet.
What I learned yesterday disturbed me so much I had a rough time sleeping, rougher than usual, only three hours instead of my usual four or five.
The kids and the First Lady aren’t going to be happy. But none of them are here. And it’s Saturday, so Vanks and Jared are on shutdown for Shmegegge until nighttime.
And if I don’t tell the world, who will? As someone said yesterday on Air Force One, it’s one of my destinies to be America’s first whistle-blower in chief.
“Obama wiretapped me in Trump Tower last fall! My office! Possibly my private bedroom! But they found nothing, because NOTHING TO FIND, so couldn’t prevent my landslide victory! As someone on AF One said, it’s McCarthyism!”
Need to trim eighty-one characters. Tweet.
I see sunlight.
“When a SECRET COURT turns down your ‘wiretap,’ even if you’re the sitting ‘President,’ OBAMA, I’m pretty sure it’s ILLEGAL to go ahead and ‘wiretap’ a campaign for president before an election! DISGUSTING NEW LOW!”
I probably shouldn’t include his name. Ivanka and Jared and the First Lady will hate that. Also, it’s seventy-five long. Okay, trim. Tweet.
The sun is up. I feel a little better. And I know I’ll feel even better if I do name him.
“It’s disgusting and historic what President Obama did—to tapp my private personal telephones during our highly sacred election procedure. Much, much, much worse than Nixon & Watergate. Very bad (or VERY SICK) dude!”
Tweak, trim, and . . . tweet, wham bam!
MITZI: Presidential to-do list
Song, “TWEAK, TRIM, AND TWEET / WHAM BAM,” © 2017 by Donald J. Trump, add to Kanye rap song.
When you have as many followers on Twitter as I do, as soon as each tweet gets beamed up, it’s amazing to watch the “likes” and “retweets” roll in, live tallies, like a hundred a minute. Sometimes, quite frankly, I lose track of time watching that, realize a half hour has gone by and the meeting with the intelligence briefer or whatever is suddenly over. It’s what Tiger Woods means when he talks about “getting in the zone.”
I feel much, much better now.
In the bathroom I see another important piece of news that demands a response—Arnold Schwarzenegger is now pretending he quit as host of New Celebrity Apprentice because of the show’s “baggage.” The president of the United States is “baggage”?! So rude and unpatriotic, especially for an immigrant allowed to become an American without any vetting, even though his father was a Nazi. I need to tell the world that Arnold was fired because of his ratings.
I know the haters and pundits are going to hit me now for hitting Arnold right after I revealed that Obama committed major federal crimes and may be mentally ill—the ratings of a TV show, they’ll say, aren’t as “important” as my exposé of this terrible secret attack on our election process. To that I have three answers. First, both are about telling the truth, which Donald Trump happens to believe the American people deserve to know. Second, any president has to be a world-class “multitasker,” as Ivanka says, dealing with a completely different kind of problem every minute—and then be able to leave it all behind and clear his head as he tees off—at 9 a.m. sharp—on the fabulous first hole of Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach. And third—morning, Anthony, how’s it hangin’? . . . third, whatever it was I’ll remember and talk about later.
I SHOT A FIFTY-NINE this morning, one of my best scores ever. It’s freaky how well I’ve been playing. Two holes in one today, one of them on a par four, birdies and eagles on most of the others, which is so incredible, almost, what do you call it, supernatural. It made me think that all that praying for me, from all those millions and millions and millions of Christians all over America, is actually working. I’d ask Mike Pence, but then he’d start in. Anyhow, it’s a shame that issuing press releases or even mentioning my scores on Twitter would be “bragging.” I think it would cheer up America—we’re winning!—but Ivanka and everybody says no.
I was in a fantastic mood when my African American Secret Service agent Anthony and I walked into the Mar-a-Lago Club tonight. “What the heck, Willll-bur,” I said to my commerce secretary/SVP biz dev, Wilbur Ross. Everyone at the presidential table chuckled. “This was supposed to be a guys’ weekend—who’s this hot tamale you brought along for us? She’s just the right height for Jeff!” Everyone laughed hard, including Mrs. Ross, whose name is actually Hillary. “Pardon my French”—I whispered, but loud, you know—“who doesn’t like to fuck a Hillary, huh?” Pardon my French, but they laughed hard! I’ve known Wilbur and Hillary for years. She’s his third. Most of us are on our thirds—me and Mnuchin (treasury secretary/EVP finance), Bannon has had at least three. For almost seventy, Hillary Ross looks fantastic, an eight or probably a nine for her age, which by the way is another way I’m actually so nice to women—over forty, I have a very fair formula in my head for calculating their scores, like handicaps in golf.
You know how Abe Lincoln had his “team of rivals”? I didn’t either until I heard Charles Krauthammer or some professor mention it on Fox while I was picking my cabinet. That’s why I did the favor for Ben Carson, one reason, but not many people know that W
ilbur Ross was also once one of my tough, tough rivals. It’s too complicated to explain all the details, but way back, during the first Bush Administration, some Wall Street types expected me to pay a ridiculously unfair interest rate on $675 million they’d invested in my fantastic Trump Taj Mahal casino. Wilbur was their guy, and the two of us negotiated a very, very nice deal where Donald Trump, the person, didn’t declare bankruptcy, because I never have and never will, and everybody got to walk away happy.
I sat down at the table, but something didn’t feel right, like something was out of balance, and then I realized the problem. I made everybody change seats so that it would be me, then a bald guy (General Kelly), then another guy with great hair (Don McGahn), almost-bald guy (Kosher Steve), another guy with great hair (Bannon), bald guy (Ross), woman with nice hair, Jeff Sessions. I think Bannon thought I did it because I didn’t want him next to me.
“Hey,” I said, “offense is the only good defense, right?” We were discussing how I’d called out Obama that morning for wiretapping me. The two Steves totally loved the tweets. Wilbur said the follow-up right afterward with Schwarzenegger proved I wasn’t “obsessed with the Russia stuff.” McGahn rained on the parade a little, but he’s a lawyer, and both Steves swore up and down that the writer of the Breitbart article about the Obama wiretaps is a very strong guy, their most trusted guy, Harvard and Harvard Law School, and that for sure there was all kinds of proof, confidential sources, et cetera.