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Alec Baldwin Steals Donald Trump’s Title Of ‘Ratings Machine’

By Stacey Cole
Published on: 21:09 PST, Feb 24, 2017

Alec Baldwin may have just received the highest praise of all, according to CNN. A Dominican Republic newspaper has mistaken the 58-year-old actor with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Alec Baldwin has won two Emmy awards in his lifetime, but a newspaper called El Nacional has just identified the actor as U.S. President, whom the actor impersonates on Saturday Night Live despite Trump’s outrage.

The Dominican Republic newspaper may have just given Trump one more reason to bombard Alec Baldwin with criticism on Twitter. El Nacional accidentally identified the actor as the U.S. president when it published a picture of the actor referring to him in the caption as, “Donald Trump, president of the United States.”

Last Saturday, the newspaper apologized to its readers and “anyone who felt affected” for the gaffe. It seems that Alec Baldwin’s mother, Carol, was right when she once predicted her son would make it to the White House.

Now there’s at least one newspaper that thinks Alec Baldwin is the U.S. President. While being confused for the U.S. president may not be a big deal for Baldwin, the latest SNL episode certainly is, according to Vanity Fair.

Alec Baldwin, who hosted the NBC sketch show for a record 17th time, once again rolled out his spot-on Donald Trump impersonation and it really paid off this time. The actor, who has been impersonating Trump on SNL since October last year, helped the show set its five-year ratings record.

SNL is currently enjoying a kind of renaissance thanks to Alec Baldwin’s iconic impersonation of Trump as well as Melissa McCarthy’s impersonation of White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

Despite the fact that in the past few years SNL has lost a fair share of its viewership and fans who thought the sketch show became too boring and unfunny, the NBC show once again returned to the spotlight and enjoys millions of tweets and Facebook posts from fans discussing Alec Baldwin and McCarthy’s impersonations on the show.

Though there is at least one person who thinks SNL is still unfunny. Alec Baldwin’s impersonation of Trump didn’t go unnoticed by the U.S. president himself, who last month took to Twitter to call SNL“not funny,” “really bad television” with a “terrible” cast.

Hosting the February 12 episode of SNL, which showed Alec Baldwin’s Trump taking his immigration order cast to The People’s Court, the actor attracted a record-breaking viewership for the NBC sketch show. But most notably, Baldwin’s SNL ratings last week were far higher than those from Trump’s hosting gig on the sketch show back in 2015.

Alec Baldwin’s turn as SNL host last week averaged a 7.2 rating, beating Trump’s 6.6 rating from two years ago. While this is the show’s best rating since 2011, when SNL‘s ratings were boosted thanks to an episode that followed an NFL game, it’s fair to say that this is the show’s best rating since Betty White hosted the sketch show back in 2010.

And since ratings are a big deal for Trump, Alec Baldwin’s record-breaking SNL episode might prompt a tweet or two from the president – though he has remained silent about the latest episode so far.

Last month, Trump slammed Arnold Schwarzenegger for his poor ratings for The New Apprentice, which Trump himself hosted for several years. Bashing the Terminator actor, Trump called himself the “ratings machine.” Oops, has that title just been stolen by Alec Baldwin?

And if Alec Baldwin is so good at beating Trump’s ratings, would he win a presidential race against the real estate mogul? If yes, why hasn’t he announced running for president in 2020?

[Featured Image by Theo Wargo/Getty Images]

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Saturday Night Live Donald Trump Alec Baldwin Arnold Schwarzenegger Melissa McCarthy
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