You Can't Spell America Without Me

by Alec Baldwin

  Because I’m right about the wiretaps.

  I know it. I feel it, in an unbelievably strong way, incredibly strong, fantastically strong. Earlier I mentioned my “superpower”— how I can tell who’s a winner and who’s not, or know when real estate values are about to go up or down, or if a woman has feelings for me even before she knows it herself. I realize now I’ve also always had another kind of superpower that lets me know when I’m being spied on. Ivanka says maybe I’m “alert to different energies,” and Mike Pence calls them my “gifts of the Holy Spirit.” The First Lady once said I’m like a dog who feels earthquakes beforehand, which frankly I found disgusting—the dog part—so she changed it to a unicorn—and about the wiretaps, she just mentioned that in Slovenia there’s something called “incubus” that can change shape to anything, like even a hair or a crumb, and then insert itself anywhere. Scary.

  I called my team into the Oval—Irish Steve and Kosher Steve, Irish Don, some of the other young guys, Reince, Jared. “I’m right about the surveillance, aren’t I? I know I am. I mean, I know it wasn’t necessarily a ‘wiretap,’ which is why I put the ‘quotes’ around it, definitional leeway, but otherwise, if anybody thinks the Breitbart geniuses led me in the wrong direction, speak up. Seriously.”

  I thought Jared was going to say something, but he didn’t. Nobody didn’t think I had it right.

  “Well, Sean is doing the best he can every day, but we need more people like him out there doing their jobs, saying I’m right. Why aren’t our intelligence committee guys, Burr in the Senate and what’s his name in the House, the Californian, the Mexican, Núñez—why aren’t they backing me up on this? They’re basically saying I’m wrong. You guys need to fix this.”

  “It’s New-ness, Mr. President, Devin Nunes, Portuguese ancestry?” Reince said, like a question, to let me know he’d told me that before, which I found very annoying. “No squiggle over the n?”

  I didn’t say anything for like five seconds; just shot him a look until his lips twitched. Leadership 101.

  MITZI: Presidential to-do list

  Song, “NO SQUIGGLE OVER THE N MAKES AMERICA GREAT / SOMETHING SOMETHING, ET CETERA,” © 2017 by Donald J. Trump.

  “Well,” I said, “we need to turn Congressman New-ness into a team player. He’s just a congressman, right, squeezably soft in the cojones department?”

  Both of the Steves and my White House lawyer Don turned to look at this young guy I don’t really know who was standing at the edge of the group. Bannon called him “Little Mikey,” and said, “Mikey’ll eat it.” (From that Life cereal commercial—which I loved because we had a kid like that on our block in Queens, got him to jump off his roof holding two helium balloons, cracked open his head, hilarious.) I had my doubts, but then somebody said our Mike was a big winner on Jeopardy!, which I found very impressive. Also, he was Núñez’s lawyer on the intelligence committee for a couple of years until we hired him.

  I smiled and did my “thumbs-up” thing to that kid and Bannon and a couple of the others, a thumb for each one—which really excites people when I do it up close, face-to-face, because they’ve seen it so much on TV and in pictures. Management 101. It’s like a logo, but whoa, there it is in real life, and it’s amazing, like when a child sees a Santa for the first time, a good one, or if Mr. Peanut unexpectedly walked into a room, which happened to me once. It’s the same thing as at rallies when I say one of my catchphrases, like “the failing New York Times,” the crowds go crazy, like they do at Ted Nugent’s concerts when he plays “Cat Scratch Fever.” Leadership 101. You’d think I could definitely trademark the Trump Thumbs-Up, legally, right, as my branded thing? A few years ago the bureaucrats told us no, but Wilbur Ross is in charge of the Trademark Office now and he’s circling back on that for me.

  “By the way,” I asked the room, “do any of you technology geniuses know about ‘the incubus’? In Eastern Europe? Changes shape and slips in anywhere, almost invisible?”

  “RODRIGO?” It was the next morning. I was in the Treaty Room as usual, eating my bacon, drinking my Ovaltine, looking at my Twitter, reading the New York Post, watching Fox & Friends, normal morning. And then suddenly—wow. I still can’t quite believe he actually did it. “Rodrigo—get in here and do playback of the last couple minutes of Fox & Friends, okay?”

  Judge Napolitano, one of the very top, top, top legal analysts in the United States, revealed that Obama had gotten British intelligence to wiretap me, so there wouldn’t be any “American fingerprints” on it, and then “provided Obama with transcripts of Trump’s calls.” It wasn’t just his “opinion,” he said they had three sources in the CIA or wherever, sources that “informed Fox News” that I was right. They said it on the news.

  Home run, touchdown, hole in one! Trump wins again! When Rupert promised me after Roger Ailes had to leave that Fox News would be even more fair and more balanced when covering Trump, he wasn’t kidding! I knew Judge Nap to be a wise man, a truthful man, extremely truthful, but now he’s really a national hero. By the way, some people think he’s some kind of People’s Court guy, but he was a very respected actual judge in New Jersey back when I was in the casino business there, before he moved into my Trump International Hotel and Tower on Central Park West, the place where Mitt Romney failed his interview for secretary of state. Now that I really see how brave and committed to the truth Judge Nap is, I’m going to let him go ahead and put together that federal 9/11 commission redo he wants. He’s been saying for years the attacks couldn’t have happened the way the government said, and I’m sure he’s right, but now we’ll finally have an honest investigation to get the truth out.

  Now we were on a roll uncovering the horrible wiretapping Obama did to me, like the gestapo in Nazi Germany or when Khrushchev ran Russia, terrible, the worst. The next day I went out for three hours to take care of all our great autoworkers in Michigan and then did a fantastic interview with Tucker Carlson for Fox News.

  Tucker asked me about my amazing tweets about the wiretapping, and I reminded him about the “quotes” around wiretap, and Fox ran my complete answer, because they’re fair. And then I finished with what we call in television a “tease,” which I learned from those fifteen record-breaking seasons of The Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice. You let the audience know something very exciting is coming in the next show without saying exactly what it is. I totally improvised, because that’s what Trump does, but it was like a perfect putt, right into the hole from 100 yards—which by the way I’ve actually done, literally, golfing. “I think,” I told Tucker about the disgusting surveillance of me, “you’re going to find some very interesting new items coming to the forefront in the next two weeks.” I try to do this every day, announcing to the world, “Stand by, folks,” and they’re like excited monkeys at the zoo, waiting for the next banana. Very powerful Leadership 101 stuff.

  The next day, right after Sean went out and read Judge Nap’s whole transcript to all the reporters, word for word, about the British spying on me and no fingerprints, I had him come into the Oval Office alone. He was so nervous.

  “Sean?” I said.

  “Yes, Mr. President?”

  “I love that you go out there and do whatever it takes, whatever I say, you’re a good soldier, the best. You just keep marching and chanting, like we did in military school, ‘Whip me, beat me, I need love, let me feel that leather glove, whip it around, make it crack, lay that whip across my back.’ No matter how much shit the reporters are throwing at you—keep going right up the beach, like that scene in Saving Private Ryan.”

  “I appreciate that, Mr. President.”

  “No matter what I said in January about the way you dressed, Sean, you’re a hero.” I handed him one of the metal four-leaf clover pins for the St. Patrick’s Day event later on. “This is like your special Purple Heart, okay? Except green.”

  He teared up. Management 101.

 
It’s Marketing 101 that when you’re on a roll, you have to keep your eye on the ball and keep it rolling—even when other things are distracting you. Like when President Merkel came by the next day.

  Meeting her in person, I realized that one of my big problems with her is that she reminds me of Hillary. She could be her sister, the hair so similar, dresses like her, really behaves like Hillary, thinks she’s so smart and always acts like what I’m saying is ridiculous, comes across as so mean, like she’s ready to scold me. As Steve Bannon says about Hillary, “You send a letter addressed to ‘Bitch, Westchester, USA,’ it gets delivered to her.” Of course, she lost, big-time, electoral college landslide, a win for me that was literally impossible for a Republican, although I did it, which is so amazing.

  But I was nice to Merkel. Beforehand I practiced pronouncing her name right. You don’t say it like the beautiful redhead supermodel Angie Everhart, who I knew when I was single, or like Angela Lansbury—who, by the way, could be Hillary and Merkel’s mother. It’s AHHHHNGLE-uh, like the doctor’s sticking the Popsicle stick down your throat, AHHHHNGLE-uh.

  MY DAUGHTER TIFFANY ENDS IN Y, WHICH IS ALSO CONSIDERED A VOWEL, NOT MANY PEOPLE KNOW THAT.

  “So, Angela,” I said, breaking the ice, so much ice with her, “Obama wiretapped you, Obama wiretapped me, we’ve got a lot in common, right?” She smiled in that polite, mean way. “But seriously, Angela, that kind of wiretapping—it makes you feel like we’re living in Nazi Germany, right? Which I know you didn’t, but you know, I’m German, my grandparents, my dad was actually, what do you call it, a fetus in Germany, but they tell me you’re East Germany. Which is actually something I happen to like. The First Lady is from Slovenia, also Eastern Europe, right, Russia used to run it, and my first wife, Ivana, Czechoslovakia during the Communist time, right next to East Germany, as you know. So you and I should have a special feeling. And also, even your name, Angela—you probably didn’t realize all my wives’ names end in the letter A, and my daughter’s also. And my daughter Tiffany ends in Y, which is also considered a vowel, not many people know that, plus all three of my granddaughters’ names end in vowels. It’s become kind of a family requirement, like the Kardashians with the Ks. So all the beautiful girls in my life—and now you!”

  Sometimes some of the supplements and special vitamins I take make me a little more talkative, which people actually love, since I don’t drink.

  When I asked Merkel if she ever met Putin when he was stationed in East Germany with the KGB, she said no and then changed the subject to economics and trade. She claimed we couldn’t do a deal, America with Germany, because Germany’s part of the European Union. What? Like NAFTA means I can’t do a trade deal without getting permission from the Mexicans? Please.

  But if she wanted to play hardball, Trump can play hardball. “Do you know your company, the German company, Infineon Technologies?”

  “Yes, perhaps,” she said, “I think maybe.” I could tell she was pretending not to know. Standard negotiating trick. One of her guys piped up and reminded her she’d visited its factory in Dresden.

  “Right,” I said. “Okay, well, the Vietnamese guy who broke into the White House last weekend, you heard about that? Carrying a computer? And some messages about hacking and Russia? He works for Infineon Technologies.”

  And then she just completely played dumb, like she was confused, “No idea what you’re talking about, Mr. President,” and said she hadn’t even seen the news about the ninja wiretapper arrested at the White House. Whatever. That’s negotiation. You don’t say everything you know.

  But then after we sat for pictures by the fireplace in the Oval, the fake media made a big deal about me not shaking her hand. Why didn’t I? I’ll tell you why. Not because I was in a bad mood or don’t like her. I shake hands with people I don’t like all the time. It was because about thirty seconds before that, she went to the ladies’ room, okay? Between that and the Hillary look-alike issue, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it right then. Sorry for being human. It’s like Shakespeare said in one of his most famous plays.

  Hold on.

  MITZI: Presidential to-do list

  Book fact-check, Shakespeare Jewish line Jared quoted at dinner on Purr him the other night, “I MAY BE A PRICK, BUT DON’T I STILL BLEED?” or whatever.

  As Merkel was leaving, by the way, I let her know I’m germophobic—but she thought I said German-phobic, so then we had to straighten that out, and then she said, “Freudian slip!” Which I guess meant she thought I was making some kind of sex joke, which I definitely wasn’t, so I just smiled and said bye.

  But later I did get in a bad mood. I found out that during my press conference with her, right when I was answering some German reporter about Obama using the British NSA to spy on me, and giving credit to Fox News, this guy Shemp Smith on Fox News retracted it, completely threw Judge Nap under the bus. “Fox News cannot confirm Judge Nap’s commentary.” And then Shemp Smith hits me, goes “Fox News knows of no evidence of any kind that the now president of the United States was surveilled at any time, in any way, full stop.” This is a guy named after one of the Three Stooges, and not even one of the original, actual Three Stooges.

  MITZI: Presidential to-do list

  Book fact-check, Fox News gay guy, “Shemp” or “Shep”? like the older cook at Mar-a-Lago says “shimfs” when he’s talking about shrimp, “we got us some fine shimfs in today, Mister President”? Fantastic guy, African American, definitely voted for Trump, helped me win Florida.

  Okay, it’s Shep. I’m sure he timed his attack on me and Judge Nap for when I was with Merkel, so that I couldn’t see it live and react right away. When I called Rupert from Air Force One on the way to Palm Beach, he more or less apologized, and said even though he had to let his son pull Judge Nap off the air, it would only be for like a week. I reminded Rupert that I’d done what he wanted about so many things. Rupert just turned eighty-six, which worries me, quite frankly, because I’m not comfortable with the idea of the sons being totally in charge of Fox News, and I’m not sure Fox viewers would be either. For instance, I know about 90 percent of them agree with me about Obama’s disgusting surveillance of me.

  I spent nine hours that weekend at my Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, where I had some important presidential meetings I’m not allowed to talk about, and also golfed, which lifted my mood, which is so important for the country— I shot below par on every hole, what they call a “perfect round,” although this was actually better than perfect because I got two holes in one, maybe more, so many I’m not even sure. All those important secret meetings at the course meant I couldn’t spend as much time as I’d have liked at Mar-a-Lago with the First Lady and her great parents, Viktor and Amalija, who were visiting all weekend. Family, so great, so important, great family.

  Mike Pence also happened to be in Palm Beach giving a speech, so I invited him over on Saturday night to take a look at Mar-a-Lago and have dessert with us and then go to wherever he was staying. Mike is doing such a fantastic job as the vice president! That’s partly because he mostly stays in his office in the West Wing during the day, so he’s not in my face all the time getting on my nerves, like certain other members of my team who I can fire anytime I want, and he goes home at a normal time to Karen, who’s not only his first wife but is actually older than Mike, which is amazing and so great, God bless them. But she’s fifty-eight. I personally just don’t think I could manage to do that. We all have certain lines we can’t cross, such as playing with a dog or eating sushi.

  At Mar-a-Lago, Mike assured me in private that this thing he said about never being alone with any woman except his wife, even for a meal, was not a hit on me since he’d said it like fifteen years ago—which somebody checked later, and it was true. Nice. Still weird, but nice. Seeing him in Palm Beach, at more of a beautiful Godfather kind of place than usual, I realized he is probably my Tom Hage
n, even looks like Duvall. He might be more loyal to Trump than Bannon. We’ll see. I have a feeling I might have a better idea very soon of how much I can trust Steve to get things done that need doing.

  THE BAD POLLS ARE PROBABLY MOSTLY OR COMPLETELY FAKE

  It’s dark.

  The only light on in my presidential bedroom in the Washington, D.C., White House is from my phone and the TV.

  A week ago the Gallup Poll said most Americans like Trump, which is obviously right. Now they say that 58 percent don’t like Trump. A week later? How can that be true? That can’t be true. As I warned everybody immediately after my inauguration, negative polls are fake news, the way all the polls were before the election. The press is trying to convince people to turn against me—“Look, he’s getting less popular so you should turn against Trump, too!” I think they’re also trying to mess with my mind, make me sad. Fortunately I’m extremely, extremely strong. And I do know the bad polls are probably mostly or completely fake.

  I told Reince and Jeff Sessions again just yesterday that I wanted to be able to sue the polls and newspapers and fake news shows when they lie about me. Which they’re looking into. Like, right now, Forbes magazine, who I’ve been so nice to for so many years, posed for their cover so many times, sold so many magazines for them, I just saw on Twitter they released a new billionaire list. They say I fell from number 205 last year to number 544 now, which is a complete lie.

  Fox & Friends just came on. You know, a lot of mornings I feel like Steve Doocy and the guy Brian really are my friends. Unlike the dishonest and failing Joe and Mika, who I was so nice to back when they were fair, but, boom, I just unfollowed them both on Twitter. It’s a privilege, not a right, Joe and Mika.