Here’s an idea: Since President Donald Trump has said he’s planning on ditching the annual White House Correspondents Dinner in April, maybe a substitute could take his place. Who better than Alec Baldwin, whose impersonations of the president on “Saturday Night Live” continue to grow eerily close to the real thing?
Actor Zach Braff came up with the idea. After Trump said he wouldn’t be attending the dinner, Braff tweeted to Baldwin that it was time to “suit up.” Other Baldwin fans chimed in.
No word yet from Baldwin. Trump would probably be extremely displeased about the substitution, as he absolutely loathes Baldwin’s impersonations of him and just doesn’t think they’re ... well ... funny.
Trump would be the first president in over three decades to duck out of the event, which typically features a comedy roast of the president.
It’s not a huge surprise that Trump plans to dodge the event, given his repeated attacks on the media that have included calling the press the “enemy of the people.” After his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, several media outlets, including The Huffington Post, were barred from a press briefing.
The president’s attacks had the media rethinking the whole dinner affair. The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Bloomberg have canceled their famous event parties, and CNN was considering skipping the sit-down. Comedian Samantha Bee announced earlier this year that she was planning an event to be held the same night with the tentative title of “Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.”
The White House Correspondents Association’s event, which hosts D.C. journalists, celebrities and Beltway newsmakers, first began in 1921. The last president to skip out was Ronald Reagan in 1981. He was still rattled by an assassination attempt — but he managed to phone in his comments.
Trump has attended the dinner before, and then-President Barack Obama ribbed him in 2011 for peddling the “birther” conspiracy theory.
Who knows? If Baldwin decides to pick up the gauntlet, perhaps there would also be an open invitation for “SNL” pal Beck Bennett to stand in for Russian President Vladimir Putin.