Celebrity1 min(s) read
Published 16:39 05 Oct 2020 GMT
Following last weekend's Donald Trump impression on SNL, Alec Baldwin has taken to Instagram to defend mocking the president in the wake of his and the First Lady's COVID-19 diagnosis.
Some viewers have criticized SNL's decision to have Baldwin (who has been impersonating the incumbent president on the show since 2016) poke fun at Trump while he recovers from the virus.
Take a look at this parodied reenactment of the first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden:
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The moment of the skit which was deemed to be particularly insensitive was when Baldwin, as Trump, foreshadowed his own diagnosis, saying: “The China Virus has been very mean to me by being a hoax, and that statement will not come back to haunt me later this week.”
Some of the critics voiced their disapproval on Twitter, with one person writing: "Yes the only difference between Democrat leaders and Baldwin.. Baldwin thinks he has nothing to loose by showing his hate when a person is sick showing true colors!! [sic]."
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Another asked: "Where’s the humanity?"
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In response to the critics, Baldwin explained in a 14-minute Instagram video:
“If there was ever the suggestion that Trump was truly, gravely ill, and people said, 'Trump is really in trouble,' then I would bet you everything I have that we wouldn't even get near that, in terms of content of the show. They would have done something else. I've seen that happen before.”
Check the video out here:
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Trump was believed not to be "gravely ill" as a video of him saying that he was “starting to feel good” and that he thinks he will “be back soon” was posted online before SNL aired.
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"We only have the words of the White House itself and the people who work there themselves to go on, and all of them have all been saying he isn’t in any danger,” added Baldwin. “We only have their word to go by. And if their word was that he was in serious trouble, then we probably wouldn't have done it.”
“We thought the debate was something topical, and we didn't have anything with him in a hospital bed, but we had the debate. You'd have to have a very good reason to avoid that, topicality-wise, and nobody thought that they were mocking somebody's illness by doing that.”
Despite Trump's claims that we will "be back soon", there have been some contradictory reports on the state of his health.
While his physician Sean Conley said on the weekend that he's “extremely happy” with Trump’s progress, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows explained: “The president’s vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. We are still not on a clear path to a full recovery.”
It remains to be seen how next month's US presidential election will pan out.
