You Can't Spell America Without Me

by Alec Baldwin

  I FEEL LIKE A NEW MAN

  Never forget the important life lesson I mentioned earlier—how the ups don’t last long. There’s always something—as my dad used to say, a fly in the ointment, a skunk at the picnic, a turd in the punch bowl, an African American in the woodpile, some unauthorized foreign tenant hiding in the attic. He was a loyalty guy, my dad, and I’m a loyalty guy. So right after I gave Gorsuch one of the greatest jobs in America—only $244,000, but no mandatory retirement—so times forty years that’s $10 million—plus book money, speech money, probably endorsement money, summers completely off—the guy comes back to Washington, at our expense, and starts telling senators he finds my criticism of judges who let terrorists into America “disheartening” and “demoralizing.” Could you believe that? He even did it on the same day the judges at the worst appeals court went against us—judges out west, where he’s from, by the way. I was very, very disappointed. Majorly disappointed. In fact, I went back to our vetting file on Neil and thought about putting a certain very interesting item into a tweet. But then I decided against it. Because I’m a nice guy, and Justice Gorsuch is our guy, and I wanted the win for America. Although now he knows I know about that interesting item from 1988. So we’re good, I’m sure we’re good.

  KELLYANNE SAYS that since I’d spent two entire weeks as president, all at the White House, it was okay to head down to Florida for the weekend. Headed there now. I’m in Air Force One’s Oval Office. Which is tight, and not an oval, but at least it now has a new large-screen TV with a fantastic remote control, state of the art. Soon I’ll be at my Mar-a-Lago, getting the tan back up where it belongs, surrounded by my hundreds of longtime loyal members, all my longtime loyal employees—although I’m going to have Rodrigo start flying back and forth, to be a steward at both White Houses, the old one and the fantastic Southern one. With his Philippines background, it seems like he’d be a perfect fit down there, with the palm trees and the ocean and the Spanish and the heat, and all the constant lawn care.

  And tomorrow, instead of sitting down to some meeting at 9 a.m., with everybody trying to show how serious and smart they are, I’ll be teeing off at Trump International Golf Club, which has twenty-seven holes, no two alike and the highest elevation of any course in the State of Florida, a fantastic course, where I’ve won the club championship three times so far. I own the club, which is only twenty minutes away from the Southern White House, which I also own. Which I mention because it means that, in addition to being a perfect place for any American to hold weddings and corporate meetings and experience the Trump lifestyle, Trump International will be a perfect venue for making great trade and world peace deals with visiting world leaders—deals that benefit you, the forgotten Americans. Win-win-win.

  Also, I’m very much looking forward to spending the weekend with my beautiful wife and our top-notch son for the first time in weeks, which will be great, since I miss them both very much, of course. The First Lady has not been to the White House since the inauguration, partly because she has been working hard preparing a new lawsuit against the terrible English newspaper that printed horrible, vicious, disgusting, very untrue lies about how she earned her living when she was younger—lies that have harmed her unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as an extremely famous and well-known person, to launch a broad-based commercial brand in multiple product categories, including apparel, shoes, jewelry, timepieces, cosmetics, hair and skin care, fragrance, body scrubs and muds, financial services, dairy substitutes, antifungals, major appliances, auto repair, and sandwich bags, each of which could have garnered multimillion-dollar business relationships for a multiyear term in which she will be one of the most photographed women in the world. But despite all of that, as well as her time-consuming primary custodial responsibility for our fantastic son, my wife will be joining me at the White House for a great event in eleven days, as First Lady. After that, she’ll probably spend at least one night at the Executive Mansion every nine to eleven days through the first and second quarters, as the mood strikes her.

  Saturday I got to spend five hours on the course. Turns out, when you’re president, the trip from Mar-a-Lago across the bridge on Southern Boulevard to Trump International is only fifteen minutes. Shot a sixty-seven, five under par, which I must honestly tell you is an incredible score, an unbelievable score. I feel like a new man. “You mean ‘incredible’ and ‘unbelievable’ like ‘not true’?” my youngest son asked when I got home to Mar-a-Lago. He wasn’t smiling, so I don’t think he was making fun of me.

  I LIKE TOUGH

  Because the First Lady can’t be in Washington as much as she and I would very much like, I often have Ivanka and Jared join me for dinner at the White House. Tonight I surprised them with some special kosher steak.

  “Is that the greatest steak you’ve ever eaten? Walking around in Nebraska this morning, all koshered up by the afternoon, on White House china tonight,” I said. “Air Force is flying them in for me from the base in Omaha to Andrews on one of their C-17 Globemasters. Globemasters!”

  “Ooh, ultimate farm to table!” Ivanka said.

  Her oohs are like the First Lady did when she was young, very cute, very sexy. “Hold on a second, baby.”

  VOICE MEMO: Presidential to-do list

  Song, “NEBRASKA THIS MORNING / KOSHERED UP THIS AFTERNOON / ON WHITE HOUSE CHINA TONIGHT,” Toby Keith! © 2017 by Donald J. Trump.

  They smiled. But I’m serious about the songs.

  “Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the Air Force could also supply some of the same meat to Trump International down the street? We already know the steak business, right? But super limited edition! Not necessarily kosher. Trump Globemaster Same-Day Steaks! Plus, a new revenue center for the Pentagon.”

  Now they chuckled. That’s a problem being president—for me. With a lot of my ideas, everybody now thinks I’m joking. But I’m usually not. And sometimes I think they’re joking when it turns out they’re not—like when somebody mentioned “Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, the president of Turkmenistan,” I laughed out loud and said “Shhhh!” because I thought the PC police would call it “racist.” (The guy is real, and so is Turkmenistan.) But whenever I tell them I’m not joking, they give me weird looks—or glance at each other when they think I’m looking down at my phone, like Jared did at dinner tonight when I dictated the memo about my latest song.

  “You know what I mean, Dad?” Ivanka had changed the subject.

  “Where the hell are you going with that, Vanky-panky?” She’d said this weird thing about Steve Bannon. She said he reminds her of my second wife, her first stepmother. Like Marla, she said, Steve is a flirt and a Southerner who looked really good when he was young and never quite made it in show business. And like with Marla, I’d had what Ivanka called “a long-term man crush” on Steve, which doesn’t mean gay, before I officially dumped his predecessors and got together with him.

  “Steve’s a hundred times smarter than Marla,” I said. “I think his IQ is like 200, 225, math and verbal. And Marla doesn’t drink, unlike certain White House advisers and ex-wives I could mention.”

  But that led Ivanka and Jared and me into a very honest discussion about Steve Bannon. Who, by the way, is now getting even more coverage from the media since I put him on my National Security Council with the special platinum all-access VIP pass. (Finally he stopped with the “served aboard the USS Foster in the Pacific in the Cold War” stuff.) I signed the order for that, by the way, on the Saturday of that tough weekend right in the middle of all the disgusting airport chaos that Steve and his team didn’t foresee, when Jared was unavailable because he so strictly observes Shebang or Schmata or whatever. According to Jared’s “analytics,” Steve has already gotten as much coverage as Karl Rove got during Bush’s whole first year, more than any senior White House strategist in history. Food for thought. By the way, Bannon’s office in the West Wing is right next to Jared’s, and the walls in the West Wing, exce
pt for special ones in the Oval and the Situation Room, are not so thick.

  Which reminded me. “Vanky,” I told her, “good news—I gave Reince the official go-ahead—you’re getting that West Wing office you wanted, right upstairs. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

  “Ooh, thanks,” she said, and blew me a kiss. I caught it and put it in my mouth. Nice.

  Rodrigo came in to clear our plates. “Don’t let all that fantastic steak these two gym rats didn’t eat go to waste—take it home! Maybe give some to my boy Anthony, too, if he’s still standing guard out there—if he hasn’t retired yet!”

  Anthony is young, but I found out that he and a hundred other of the Secret Service African Americans just got paid off like a quarter million apiece in a settlement for “discrimination” by past administrations—not by us, by others, including Bill Clinton’s, which the media has never written about. Who signed that $24 million check on his way out? Obama, of course. I asked Anthony if he’s got his eye on one of the top-of-the-line Cadillac Escalades, because a friend of mine in Miami, Ed something, major Trump supporter, is the second-largest Cadillac dealer in America, so I could get him a beautiful deal. Anthony told me he prefers German cars. I bet Obama drives an Audi, too. Not many people realize an agent like Anthony makes $142,000 base, $160,000 with overtime. Seriously! As much as a general! Almost as much as a senator! Wow. I mean, good for Anthony and all the lucky African Americans in America. But wow.

  All the media focus on Bannon is another part of the Trump Bump. I get that. But the headline on the New York Times editorial— “President Bannon”? Two days later, the Bannon cover story on Time. Two days after that, Saturday Night Live’s skit—with Bannon treating Trump like a retarded boy—so offensive. Then this cartoon on Colbert’s Late Show tonight, where I’m crying and Bannon is tucking me into bed. So disrespectful, so unpatriotic, so vicious.

  But Steve is another tough Irishman. I like tough. Mike Flynn is Irish, also tough, although that kind of Irish wiry tough that can suddenly flip over to crazy wild man. Sean Spicer is Irish, tough in the way youngest kids in Irish families are, the chubby ones who get razzed and beat up a lot. Kellyanne is Irish, also very tough. She turned fifty on Inauguration Day. Phenomenal body on Kellyanne, if I’m being perfectly honest. And four kids came out of there, practically last month, she has young kids. People call Kellyanne a butterface, which is very unkind, and come on, guys, the lady is fifty years old—which by the way my wife will be during my first term, as Ivanka reminded me again, said we should plan a big fiftieth birthday celebration. The First Lady was twenty-eight when we met. She said then that I was like this certain god in ancient Slovenia, in their religion or whatever, who has tons of gold and a gun that never misses and a magic fiddle that makes everyone dance. That was so hot when she said that. Wow. Time flies.

  But back to toughness, which I love, even in women, to a certain extent. Reince is a good guy, polite, intelligent, sweet guy, trying to do his best, but he’s not what you’d call a tough guy. The same with Sean—nice, follows orders, works like hell to survive, not a loser, like I’ve heard people say, but not your Mr. Toughie, either. Ivanka is very tough—in fact, she’s like a secretly tougher version of me because she can act nice much better than I can, so nice, so sweet, so feminine, so liberal, whatever, and then boom, you’re dead. Jared is similar—he was so polite to Chris Christie for so long before he pulled the trigger on him, like a coldhearted hit man. But then the Jewish people tend to be tough people, even the ones born into money. Such as Jared’s dad, very tough son of a gun who Chris Christie sent to a prison in Alabama for blackmailing a snitch, a snitch who happened to be his brother-in-law, by setting the guy up with a hooker. I won’t go into the details, but they’re really amazing. It was a sad time for Jared.

  IVANKA IS VERY TOUGH—IN FACT, SHE’S LIKE A SECRETLY TOUGHER VERSION OF ME BECAUSE SHE CAN ACT NICE MUCH BETTER THAN I CAN, SO NICE, SO SWEET, SO FEMININE, SO LIBERAL, WHATEVER, AND THEN BOOM, YOU’RE DEAD.

  A lot of time in families, the tough and weak come in sets. For instance, I’m tough, and my sister the brilliant federal judge is tough, but my two brothers—the one who was supposed to take over the business from my dad and the one who raises horses or whatever—not really tough guys. And the family toughness sets can come in threes, too, like with my children from my first marriage—Ivanka (spicy), Don Junior (medium), and Eric (mild), or like the three Kennedy brothers, JFK and Bobby and Teddy, although with them everyone finally respected the also-ran because he lived so long. It’s all about harmony and balance, Ivanka says. I guess.

  Nothing says fit and healthy like a good tan, and crucial to the Trump brand—so when I’m stuck in Washington with no time for golf, touch-ups are essential.

  IT WAS ABOUT TO GET EVEN BETTER

  The Japanese prime minister had been visiting for twenty-four hours, but this was my first real private time with him.

  “Shinzō,” I said, “what do you think of Reince Priebus?”

  We were walking off the green of the first hole (fifteen-foot birdie for me, par four for him) at the beautiful Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, about a half hour up the coast from the Southern White House.

  I guess Prime Minister Abe didn’t understand my question.

  “My Chief. Of. Staff,” I explained. The translator translated— although with that you never really know for sure, do you? “At the White House yesterday,” I said, “short guy, dark hair, balding, looks a little Japanese come to think of it, always darting around. Reince Priebus? Good man, you think?”

  Mr. Abe still looked confused, the way he had the night before, when I told him my dad was German, actually conceived in Germany, so no hard feelings whatsoever about World War II. Somebody golfing with us said later that maybe he got a little weird about Reince Priebus because he thought I was trying to make a joke about his Japanese accent, how they pronounce the Rs. Which I wasn’t, although it was funny to think about. I was totally presidential all weekend, totally “dignified.” For instance, as we golfed on Saturday morning, I didn’t make one of those jokes guys do about the short distance from the first to the second hole and how tight and hard to get into the second hole is. Which the translator probably would’ve messed up anyhow.

  Instead, we discussed important issues. Concerning trade, I told the prime minister a story. Even if he hadn’t come to visit me at Trump Tower when I was president-elect, just a week after my landslide victory, I told him, and even if he hadn’t gifted me then with a gold, top-of-the-line $4,000 Japanese-made driver, he probably still would have been my first visiting foreign leader as President Trump—but who knows? He smiled. He was inscrutable, like they are, but I was sure he got my point.

  “Shinzō,” I continued, “you must know people who own at Trump Waikiki, right? In Honolulu? No? Beautiful 463-unit condo and hotel right on the beach, the most famous beach in the world. Most of the owners are Japanese! Right there across the bay from Pearl Harbor, but again, no hard feelings! So I’ve always wondered why was it always impossible for The Trump Organization to get anything built in Tokyo? Trade barriers! By the way, I’m told that my daughter Tiffany drives a Prius. And also, I am personally paying for your greens fees today and your lodging and meals at the Mar-a-Lago Club last night and tonight. Personally! Complimentary! No conflict of interest! Friends!”

  We had a wide-ranging discussion—how America now lets Japan buy our natural gas, how we pay for the huge base on Okinawa protecting them and keep their neighbors in North Korea from nuking them, how the Mar-a-Lago Club was bestowed with the coveted Six Star Diamond Award, the top award, beyond the normal “five stars,” from the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences, which gives out the Oscars to hotels and restaurants.* By the end of the eighteen holes, Prime Minister Abe was very receptive and Japan and the United States had become, maybe, probably, closer allies than ever before in history. I shot a sixty-five, incl
uding a hole in one on Trump National’s par-three fourteenth hole—which we didn’t publicize, not even on Twitter. That round lifted our spirits so much that instead of heading straight back to the wives at Mar-a-Lago, we stopped to play another nine at Trump International in West Palm. (I did even better: thirty-two, four under par.) By the way, even though Rex Tillerson and nobody else from the State Department was with us that weekend, I was a perfect diplomat. For instance, I pronounced the prime minister’s last name correctly every time, Ah-bay, not Abe like in Abe Lincoln, because I had the idea of thinking of it like ah-so, the Japanese word for “okay.” By the way, I discuss many more tricks like that in my best-selling book on international business, Trump Means Win in Every Language.

  A previous bestseller—about my foreign policy negotiating skills.

  My first twenty-four hours with a foreign leader as President Trump were already a gigantic success. And it was about to get even better.

  At 7 p.m. at the Mar-a-Lago Club, what we call The Trump Golden Hour™ at all of our hotel and golf properties and my homes, I stepped onto the beautiful restaurant patio—and the entire crowd of ordinary Americans stood and applauded, Mar-a-Lago Club guests as well as Mar-a-Lago Club members, each dining on their individual choices from the multicultural cuisines—Continental, New World, Classical, and New Caribbean. Prime Minister Abe and his wife (and my wife, the First Lady) were very impressed by the standing ovation—and probably surprised, because of the dishonest media’s coverage of Trump. You know how at Broadway shows, when the big star first appears on stage and the audience goes crazy and applauds, before he even does or says anything? It was just like that. And at the Mar-a-Lago Club, little did the audience know about the special, fantastic live show they were about to experience at no extra charge.