Alec Baldwin Will Return to Play Donald Trump on ‘SNL’

Alec Baldwin will reprise his impression of President Donald Trump in the 44th season of “Saturday Night Live,” the actor revealed during the “Origins” podcast with author James Andrew Miller, a longtime “SNL” chronicler.

“Trump is insane. I think most people know, the guy – he is insane. We have a man who is president who is insane” Baldwin said during the program. “You can’t go far enough with this idiot. You can’t go far enough. You can’t go far enough.”

The 44th season of “Saturday Night Live” is slated to kick off on Saturday, September 29.

Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of “Saturday Night Live,” told Miller that he was glad to have Baldwin return to the role. ” I think there is probably no other actor who is looking to take that and follow Alec. And I think, for a new cast member to come in and try that would be a really tough thing to do,” Michaels said.

And yet, Michaels noted, there does not seem to be any guarantee that Baldwin will continue the role from one season to the next. “I think with Alec, I’ve known him and worked with him for so long, that needless to say I trust him. And the audience connects to him in that role. Sometimes I feel like we are still in campaign mode. But, I thought – we see each other a fair amount, so we don’t much talk about it in the offseason. And then, I think – he was at the US Open last week, and somebody asked him if he was doing Trump. And he said, ‘yea.’ And his agent Matt DelPiano texted me and said, ‘I think he’s doing Trump.’ And I went oh, ok. But, he is somebody you know you can always count on.”

Baldwin’s portrayal of the 45th President has lent the NBC mainstay a new relevance and made it part of the ongoing political conversation in late night.

But other members of the show also view the impression as something ephemeral – part of the moment, but never guaranteed to be part of the show forever. “No Trump, less Trump—I don’t know. Like when it’s right, it’s right. The funny thing is there is a Trump exhaustion in the country and I feel like from the show even, you know. But it’s hard to leave him out of the conversation,”said Michael Che, a co-anchor of the show’s “Weekend Update” segment and one of its head writers. “I always feel like the one good thing about Saturday Night Live, is it’s always been kind of the time capsule of you know, American culture since it’s been on the air and it’s kind of hard to tell the story of American culture without talking about Donald Trump at least once a week. I mean, we talk about him 40 times a day, just in life, so you know, we’re a show where we have a different type of responsibility. We don’t really just do 90 minutes of avant garde comedy but, I don’t know—it would be hard. We’d miss him I think.”

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