Alec Baldwin Starts Fight With Other Fake Trumps For Some Reason

Fresh off the announcement that he's writing a fake presidential memoir as Trump, Alec Baldwin appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night to talk about his daughters, his new movie Baby Boss, the possibility of him hosting the Oscars, and of course his Trump impression. "You can kinda suggest the voice, or suggest the way they look, but you have to try to think of who he is," Baldwin explained. "To me, Trump is someone who is always looking for a stronger, better word, and he never finds it...He's a pamphlet thesaurus."

Unfortunately, the interview included one section in which Baldwin insulted fellow comedians doing Trump impressions, seemingly calling out Anthony Atamanuik (who impersonated Trump excellently throughout the campaign, especially on @Midnight) in particular, dismissing him as "a guy who's on the Internet."

"It's interesting that now that [Trump's] not going to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, there are people who are lobbying to play Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner," Baldwin told Kimmel. "There's a couple guys on the internet who are like, 'No, please. I'm the only man who should play Trump.' There's a lot of Trump competition, I got sucked into this."

"No one will top you on this," Kimmel replied. "Nobody even knows who these guys are, don't worry about it."

I mean, technically-speaking, Atamanuik did lobby for the WHCD gig by pinning the tweet below to his account (he acknowledged it was "uncouth") and also retweeting dozens of people calling on him to host. Personally speaking, I don't see why this should be a source of shame either way—lobby for the gigs you want, be proud of your impression, it's a very good and nuanced one!

It's certainly not a good look for Baldwin and Kimmel to be belittling other, lesser known comics on national television...but it's also disingenuous for Atamanuik to say he wasn't lobbying via social media when he clearly was. This, of course, doesn't mean it's cool for Baldwin to be a dick when he holds most of the power in this argument.

Now, as for the rumored accusations that Baldwin cribbed part of his Trump impression from Atamanuik (which seems far-fetched to me, Baldwin's impression seems different enough from Atamanuik's that the plagiarism accusations don't hold water), fellow comedian James Adomian (who played Bernie Sanders to Atamanuik's Trump in various debate sketches) waded into the tiff on Twitter with some extra spicy accusations.

On the one hand, again, Baldwin shouldn't talk shit about hard-working comedians who have half his platform and resources. If you do that, especially on national television, you're going to get a heated response (a lot of comedians aren't known for their calm demeanors). On the other hand, Adomian's attacks seem over-the-top and baseless to me. But why are we fighting over this, there's enough room for everyone's Trump impressions! Now, as long as Baldwin can refrain from responding, we can all move on—

Goddamnit.