You Can't Spell America Without Me

by Alec Baldwin

  I was fooled bad by Anthony, but now I realize who Anthony is—that famous secret black son of Bill Clinton from the Internet, Hillary and Obama put him in the Secret Service, the Secret Service, that’s collusion, he’s the wiretapper, him and his buddy Robert Pattinson, I get it, so illegal, so evil.

  I could walk out there, I say hey Anthony, beautiful new MP-5 we got you, dozen rounds a second on full auto, cool, can I hold it, take a photo, Fifth Avenue in the background, you lookin’ at me? you lookin’ at me? are you angry? buh-buh-buh-buh-buh, you’re not resistance, I’m resistance, buh-buh-buh-buh-buh, I’m commando in chief!

  Oh my God! Incredible! Amazing! So much coverage, the most coverage of anything ever in history! And it wasn’t the president’s fault! That dead black agent who looked so much like Obama, Clinton’s son, that’s what people say, why did he hand the president his weapon, maybe trying to frame him, so tragic, how terrible for the president, we still believe in him, we still trust him, we love Trump so much. Ivanka agrees, like Cosby’s grown-up daughter Rudy Huxtable at his trial, believed in her dad, stood by her man.

  My mother predicted all of this. “A colored man with a gun,” she said many, many times.

  They’d need twenty Republicans in the Senate to convict me of anything, no way they get that, maybe ten, twelve tops, but even if they put me on trial in a real court I still get off, like Cosby and OJ and Baretta and all celebrities, no-lose, totally no-lose, not guilty, greatest reality show ever, monster ratings, vindicated, win-win-win-win-win-win, The End.

  Sunrise! Feeling fantastic! Amazing energy! TGIF!

  5-4-3-2-1. 5-4-3-2-1. Always the same. 5-4-3-2-1.

  Hereʼs what’s going to happen now. We evacuate New York on my command. Because no one knows exactly whatʼs going to happen now.

  The dogs need to be captured and shaved, all of them, so they can be properly identified, and then sent back, all of them.

  And every woman has to get down on the ground, lie down, to be ready. Protection.

  I want Barron out of the country in one of the top-secret places. Now. Because itʼs showtime. Iʼm pretty sure itʼs showtime.

  “Hey, Anthony? You awake out there? Because the president has got a question.”

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  We gratefully acknowledge Lorne Michaels and the cast and crew of Saturday Night Live, particularly Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, who have written many of SNL’s Donald Trump sketches, and who contributed ideas for the photographs in You Can’t Spell America Without Me. Thanks also to Steve Higgins. Louis Zakarian, Jodi Mancuso, and Michael Anzalone create the hair, makeup, and wardrobe design, respectively, for Alec’s SNL appearances as Trump—work that Jodi and Michael did for the photo shoots here as well.

  Our collaborators at Penguin Press have been nothing but supportive and enthusiastic—especially Scott Moyers, Ann Godoff, Claire Vaccaro, Darren Haggar, Christopher Richards, Kiara Barrow, Matt Boyd, and Sarah Hutson.

  Thanks to creative director Bonnie Siegler at Eight and a Half, and designers Adam Lehman, Kellie Pcolar, and Kristen Ren.

  We’re grateful to our photographer Mark Seliger, as well as production coordinator Coco Knudson.

  Thanks also to Mary Ellen Matthews for additional photography, to location scout Ernie Liberati, production designer Rob Strauss, location coordinator Lu-Ann Russell, makeup artist Jason Milani, and photo retouchers Rachel Crowe and Salvatore Fibbri. And to our actors Shea Glasser (as the Trump women), Derek Brantley (as the Secret Service agent), and Earl Gatachalian (as the White House steward). We are especially grateful to Jim Warlick, whose Presidential Experience supplied our Oval Office, and to his colleague Alesia Jones. Thanks, Milton Glaser, for lending us your Trump-brand vodka, and David Owen, for explaining golf.

  Alec wishes to thank Karen Gantz. And, especially, his wife, Hilaria, for soldiering through an SNL season of Trump and all that went with that.

  Kurt thanks Suzanne Gluck, Eric Zohn, and Alicia Glekas Everett at WME, as well as George Sheanshang and Eric Rayman. And he’s grateful to Anne Kreamer for enduring the months of Trump-channeling and for being his first reader.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Alec Baldwin has performed on stage and television and in more than sixty films. His work has earned him an Oscar nomination (for The Cooler), a Tony nomination, two Emmy awards, three Golden Globes, and seven consecutive SAG Awards for 30 Rock. He holds a BFA in drama and an honorary doctorate from NYU-Tisch. The Hilaria and Alec Baldwin Foundation supports many organizations and causes in the arts and public policy. He is also the author of A Promise to Ourselves and a memoir, Nevertheless. He is married to Hilaria Thomas Baldwin and has four children: Ireland, Carmen, Rafael, and Leonardo.

  Kurt Andersen is the New York Times bestselling author of three critically acclaimed novels, most recently True Believers. His nonfiction books include Fantasyland, Reset, and The Real Thing. He has also written for TV, film, and the theater. In addition, he’s host and co-creator of Studio 360, the Peabody Award–winning public radio program, and a regular contributor to The New York Times and Vanity Fair. Previously, he was a columnist and critic for The New Yorker and Time, served as editor in chief of New York, and co-founded Spy magazine.

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  * My youngest son just showed me how to insert the “footnotes.” Wow! Computer genius. I wanted to say here that my other sons and I are such fans of the AAHS and its president and CEO, our friend and former Miss Universe judge Joey “No Socks” Cinque, that we’ve personally served on his board. Fantastic organization!

  * Barron showed me how to save the tweets I write but don’t beam immediately so I can dig them out later if I want, such as this one I didn’t send: “If goofy old Elizabeth Warren were president she would never let the generals send in the Tomahawks—even though she’d be POTUS POCAHANTAS!!!” Great, right?

  * By the way, speaking of so-called judges, remember how I said at the very start, many chapters ago, how I told my White House counsel I wanted the unfair “Mexican-American” Judge Curiel from my Trump University case to get one of the cases of the deported illegals, to show how the system is rigged against me? He did! Why? Because I wished so hard for it to happen! Call it prayer, call it one of Trump’s special powers, call it whatever you want, but it’s true.