by Alec Baldwin
Hold on, before I forget.
VOICE MEMO: Presidential to-do list
Write songs, words, not music—have them recorded by Nugent, Meat Loaf, the Jackie girl from the inauguration, Kanye et cetera.
Okay, I’m back. You see, I’m actually saying this book right into my phone. It’s amazing. I talk, I create it, it types, talking is writing nowadays, which is so great. And the beauty of this is that the computer in my phone doesn’t need a security clearance, and it won’t put in words I would never use or betray me or quit, like the ghostwriters. I own this phone.
I’LL BE REPORTING MY INSIDE STORY “IN REAL TIME,” AS JARED CALLS IT, WHICH I LIKE BECAUSE THAT ALSO MEANS IT’S THE OPPOSITE OF FAKE TIME.
My brilliant ten-year-old showed me how to push a button on the screen to make it tape my conversations whenever I want, even when it’s in my jacket, and then later turn those recordings into words, too. So you, the reader, will be right here with me, wherever I am as President Donald Trump—in the Oval Office, in the foreign countries I visit, inside the underground command rooms, flying on NASA’s secret presidential rocket to inspect our secret bases on the moon, which Alex Jones tells me definitely exist. I’ll be reporting my inside story “in real time,” as Jared calls it, which I like because that also means it’s the opposite of fake time. “You could do it in present tense,” he said, “which would make it more exciting to readers.” Right, I told him, exactly. Because I knew that “present tense” means words that express an action or state in the present moment and are used concerning that which is true at the time of writing or speaking. Examples include: “I am talking into my phone from my amazing apartment at the top of Trump Tower, and the people on the street down below look even smaller than ants, more like ticks or lice,” or “It is so fantastic being president-elect of the United States of America.”
Writing my president book by talking makes it possible for me to do it, but if I’m being honest, which I always am, the idea of doing the whole book all by myself was at first . . . made me . . . seemed like . . . oh, what is that word the phonies always use? That fake positive word when they don’t want to admit they feel scared or stupid—right, okay, dot-dot-dot: Writing a whole book by myself seemed like a serious challenge.
I had one of the girls bring me a few of the recent president memoirs, which are unbelievably long. And, I’m sure, if you read them, which probably nobody does in those cases, unbelievably boring. My very intelligent youngest son did the arithmetic—Bill Clinton’s book is like four hundred thousand words and even the one by George W. Bush is two hundred thousand. Give me a break! What are they trying to prove? And by the way, it shows those two guys have no business sense whatsoever, because publishers do not pay you a nickel more for writing more. They pay you per book, so get ready for the first sequel, probably in 2018, You Still Can’t Spell America Without Me!
I HAD ONE OF THE GIRLS BRING ME A FEW OF THE RECENT PRESIDENT MEMOIRS, WHICH ARE UNBELIEVABLY LONG.
But I’m not a “professional writer,” one of my family members warned me, although at first I thought she was saying “professional fighter.” Oh, I told her, I guess you’re the house expert on what makes somebody a professional or not, but I wasn’t a professional TV star until I decided to become one of the most successful of all time, was I? I wasn’t a professional politician until I decided to become the most successful of all time. But then Barron, who’s not just my youngest son but I also think quite frankly my smartest one, told me the secret truth: I’ve already written more than thirty thousand tweets, and each tweet is twenty-five words, which means like a million words in the last few years. So I’m actually a very, very successful writer with millions of readers and years of experience. Jared says he has a guy—one of the European guys who did such great Internet work for us during the campaign—who’ll make me an “app” that automatically eliminates most of the quotation marks I use to spice up the tweets and turns the exclamation points into periods. I told him okay, but I also want another app that turns any word I say into all capital letters if I want, just by my thinking it. Which I bet the Pentagon has.
We’re going to auction this book to all the publishers after I’m finished. Did you realize most of them are foreign-owned now? Which is very, very interesting. Very. Anyhow, my “floor,” as we say in business, is $60 million, because that’s what Barack and Michelle Obama are getting for their two books. And by the way, this book, my book, the Trump book, is now out before theirs, even though Obama was president before me. The First Lady has an approval rating even higher than mine, ridiculously high—this is her honeymoon period, good for her—but frankly I don’t think a publisher will pay all that much for a book by her. I’m not saying that just because of the funny English, or because she’s not angry like Michelle, with a million opinions about everything. The American people like Melania because she’s very beautiful and she’s with me, but also because she doesn’t say much, so why would they want to read a book by her? It’s a sad “Cash-22.” If you don’t know it, that’s a word Steve Bannon uses, meaning a real-life good news–bad news joke—like, say, a guy who could get literally any woman any time but can’t because he’s being watched every minute, like he’s in prison—that’s a Cash-22.
Millions of people are now buying this book—you did, right?—for the same reason people voted for me and the same reason that even the haters can’t stop reading about me and talking about me and thinking about me and actually dreaming about me. Because I’m not a phony, and I’m totally honest in a way nobody else in this position has ever been.
I promise everything here is 100 percent true, so true, all of it. People are already telling me it may be the truest book ever written. It is the unauthorized, uncensored inside story of me by me—thanks to technology, from my brain to my mouth to your eyes and ears and brain directly. It’s like you and I are making out and I’m just shooting information into you, shooting streams of thought and my true “me” into you. (Although if you’re a man, it’s like we’re merging and sharing power in a sci-fi movie scene, like Obi-Wan Kenobi talking directly to Luke Skywalker from heaven.) I’m going to tell you things they don’t want me to say as president, not in the speeches or the press conferences or even on Twitter—and I can do that here because I’m not writing as the president, okay, but as Donald Trump, just another American citizen who also happens to be president, so . . . freedom of expression, First Amendment, totally honest, no holds barred, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, all for you and us, the great American people.
THIS IS AMERICAN HISTORY
I woke up at dawn, like always. But where was I?
No monogrammed Ts, not on the sheets, not anywhere!
Then I remembered: It was the 20th of January. Ivanka and Jared convinced me I had to obey “tradition”—meaning the night before my inauguration I couldn’t stay in the Trump Townhouse at the Trump International Hotel, which is the biggest hotel suite in Washington and probably in America, 6,300 square feet, with its own entrance on Pennsylvania Avenue and a six-fixture master bath including a steam shower. No, I was in Blair House, behind the White House. With my beautiful wife, the First Lady–elect, I was in Obama’s guesthouse, behind the mansion, like in the White House slave quarters. Kind of unbelievable, right?
It was my final morning as Donald Trump, private citizen—yes, unbelievably rich private citizen who built the world’s largest and greatest business of its kind, private citizen already more famous than anybody on earth ever, according to some professor’s analysis. But even so, I knew my life would change forever when I became Donald Trump, President of the United States of America, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, and Leader of the Free World, even though they tell me that last one isn’t an official title anymore. I felt the way you feel right before you get married the first time—about to stand in front of a big crowd, most of the people don’t really know you, old words
you have to say, promises you mean when you say them to the minister or judge or whatever. Except becoming president really is forever in a way marriage isn’t, unless you marry somebody extremely rich or “legacy famous,” like Jackie Kennedy Onassis, who by the way wanted to date me in the 1970s, but she was already fifty.
STARTING AROUND LUNCHTIME, I WOULD BE OFFICIALLY EQUAL TO OR BETTER THAN JOHN F. KENNEDY, GEORGE WASHINGTON,RONALD REAGAN, THOMAS JEFFERSON, ABE LINCOLN, ALL OF THE ROOSEVELTS.
Starting around lunchtime, I would be officially equal to or better than John F. Kennedy, George Washington, Ronald Reagan, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, all of the Roosevelts. (By the way, I knew Reagan, consulted with him at the White House. People say he had a sixth sense that I would eventually be one of his successors. Congratulations, President Reagan, you’re welcome—even if you already had a touch of the Alzheimer’s then, I’ve now proved you right!) I never really understood what people mean when they say after some big win, a huge score, “Oh, it ‘humbles’ me, I feel so ‘humbled.’” Such phonies. I still don’t get it, but I guess something like that is what I felt the day of my inauguration. It did feel big, very, very big, the biggest ever, the biggest possible.
I was coming off a tough two years of running for president, of course, but also, believe it or not, a very tough two months as president-elect. There were a couple of really great days since the election, but only a couple. Such as—I think it was a Tuesday . . . hold on, I’ll have one of the girls look it up. I want to be accurate. This is American history.
I’M BACK. So this next part is like a flashback, okay?
It’s December 19, 2016, a Monday morning, Christmas decorations all over Fifth Avenue. I’m in my incredible penthouse apartment on the 66th floor of Trump Tower in Manhattan— actually the 66th, 67th, and 68th floors: one for me, one for my beautiful wife, and one for our son, who I guess is probably my final child, which feels sad, almost like somebody died.
Trump Tower is legendary because of tenants like Donald Trump and The Trump Organization and Donald J. Trump for President Inc., but also because it’s where Johnny Carson and Liberace lived and where Batman had his offices in The Dark Knight Rises, Wayne Enterprises. Also, while I’m thinking of it, Trump Tower disproves all the bad and unfair things people say about me. “Trump doesn’t respect women”? The very first tenants in Trump Tower were Buccellati, great jewelry for women, and Charles Jourdan, great women’s shoes. “Trump discriminates against the African Americans”? Michael Jackson lived on the sixty-third floor, same four-and-a-half-bath unit where I put my own parents. And Baby Doc, president of Haiti, black guy, had a beautiful place on the fifty-fourth floor. “Trump doesn’t like the Hispanics and Latinos”? The owner of Jose Cuervo tequila owns three apartments! “Trump doesn’t have a big heart, doesn’t understand prison reform”? We’ve had many criminals living in Trump Tower, people who’ve paid their debts both to society and The Trump Organization, and a couple actually served their house arrest sentences in their apartments!
Me, President-elect Trump, at the Northern White House, one of the great buildings on earth, which I own.
So, anyway, I’m president-elect, it’s December 19, 2016, Christmas season, beautiful, et cetera, and I stepped into my large private elevator with one of my Secret Service guys, the African American one, Anthony. Kanye West had visited me the week before, and I’d already asked Anthony a few times how much he’d love to “date” Kim Kardashian if he could—by which I meant a beautiful star, not a white girl, because I really am the least racist person I know, and besides, I don’t believe Kim totally counts as white. Anyway, that morning instead I mentioned to Anthony I’ve lived in the apartment since 1984.
“Wow, sir, almost thirty-three years in the same home.”
“And it looks exactly like it did when I moved in—same furniture, same beautiful marble, same everything, which is why I love it. I was Don Junior’s age when I moved in, and now his oldest child is the same age as Barron, so it’s like my own children are now the same age as me. Crazy, right?”
“Yes, sir. Kind of extraordinary.”
“‘Extraordinary’—good word, Anthony, very articulate word. Very high class.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Long word.” I counted. “Six syllables. As they call the parts of a word. You know, I’m Ivy League, I’m super intelligent, I know almost all of the words, except like some of the scientific ones, definitely all of the important ones, but the phonies, a lot of them, use too many long words like ‘extraordinary’ just to sound intelligent and rich. At Wharton I knew this guy James, you weren’t supposed to call him Jim, come to think of it also an African American, very Sidney Poitier—‘Good evening, Donald’ and so forth. Not that you’re a phony, Anthony—I mean, you really look a lot like Obama, but, you know, unlike him, with the white mother, I’m sure you kept it real growing up, the gangstas, the crack whores, all that; lucky to be alive and have a good government job now. Right?”
I enjoy talking to African Americans. I did extremely well with them in the election, about a hundred times as well as the pundits and fake polls said I would, which the media never wrote. Kanye told me he has almost as many followers as I do, which I don’t really get, because he almost never tweets. I’m not saying he’s lazy. But maybe the African American audience just isn’t as demanding as my followers are.
We got off on twenty-six and I went to my office.
At Trump Tower with my great African American Secret Service agent Anthony (and behind us, my great African American doorman).
It was the day of my massive, massive landslide victory in the electoral college, which is the actual election that really counts and makes you president. Which was great, because I got a hundred more electoral votes than anybody ever thought I could, more than a hundred more. As many people know, I actually won the popular vote, too, even though the popular vote is just what in business we call a top-line number and really doesn’t mean that much. Kellyanne Conway, my first counselor to the president, told me that in this whole century, in fact, the person elected president doesn’t win the popular vote almost half the time. Which most people don’t know. As many of my top people say, the popular vote is really kind of a straw poll, which is why there’s an electoral college, to make the actual decision and keep out the losers and dopes—and crooks like you-know-who who gave tequila and food stamps to people from you-know-where to vote illegally in certain states.
But the great thing that happened concerning the electoral votes is the fantastic part that made me feel like I had truly, truly accomplished something outstanding. After the election, the Democrats continued trying to rig it against me right up to the end, pressured the people attending the electoral college to betray me and destroy tradition and break the law. But they failed so badly, because instead of going against me, almost all of the electoral college people who voted their “conscience” refused to vote for Hillary. It’s true, look it up, even the fake media were forced to write about it because it was so amazing. And there were lots more in the college who wanted to vote against Hillary—maybe a hundred, nobody knows for sure—but they weren’t allowed because the Democrats had rigged it. So the unfair tricks Hillary tried to set up to stop Trump? It hurt nasty, weak, crooked Hillary instead. It reminded me of when terrorists are building bombs but then accidentally blow themselves up. Which, every time it happens, makes me remember that God has got it all under control.
On December 19, 2016, I remember being so happy when Kellyanne rushed into my Trump Tower office to tell me about the Hillary defectors, happier than I’d been since the night of the election. In my mind at that moment, Hillary was suddenly even more of a shriveled-up and dying witch than she was on November 9, when my house crushed her, and her legs in a pantsuit curled up like in The Wizard of Oz. Now it was like the American people were all spitting on her, or something more disgu
sting, and she was melting, melting. So she’s like both of the bad witches, but not Glinda. (My mother was like Glinda. My first two wives were like Glinda when I met them.) I asked everyone, “Do you think Hillary is literally crying right now?” They laughed even harder then, everyone except Jared, who smiles a lot in a way that looks sincere, but he never really laughs, which I find very impressive. Bannon made this gesture he does with his hand, underhanded, like he’s clawing in and ripping out organs, always makes me chuckle. My “chief of staff,” Reince Priebus, said he’d try to track down if Hillary really had cried when she heard the news. It was like the most beautiful, precious gift. “Merry Christmas!” I said. Everybody laughed. “And Happy Hanukkah, Jared,” I added, with a wink, like I always do.
I WON, I’M A WINNER, I’M THE WINNER
The one other big, big day between the election and the inauguration was January 6, a Friday. So as soon as I woke up I said “TGIF” out loud, which I’ve done every Friday since I was seven, even though my father called it a sissy thing and told me to stop, so for years I just mouthed it with my lips.
Right away I received an important and surprising piece of intelligence. I learned that five million Americans, actually less than five million, had watched the second episode of The New Celebrity Apprentice, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, who can’t be president, by the way, because both he and his parents were born in foreign countries. “Five million viewers,” I said to Reince when I got down to the office, “probably the five million illegals who voted for Hillary.” He chuckled, which bugged me. “I’m not joking, Reince.” Then I received more intelligence—government stuff, classified—about the “hacking” of the insecure Democrat computers by whoever they let do that; all those e-mails from Hillary’s staff saying she’s horrible—which, according to all the intelligence agencies, had no effect whatsoever on the election results, which actually surprised me, but whatever, fine. And somebody told me the FBI was investigating my national security adviser, Mike Flynn, because he’s been working as a “lobbyist” for Turkey—because, under Obama, making a buck as a private citizen is against the law! Busy morning.
