SNL's Bigly Season

Thr Gets Backstage Access to a Historic Year, Lorne Michaels’ Post-election Speech, How Melissa Mccarthy Became Spicer (With Help From Kristen Stewart), Alec Baldwin’s Future as Trump and the Show’s Biggest Ratings in Decades: ‘you Almost Feel Like a War Profiteer’

- Lacey Rose

Outside of a cadre of furious tweets, Alec Baldwin hasn’t heard a peep from the man he’s been portraying for the past eight months on Saturday Night Live.

But Baldwin, who’s enjoying another career renaissance thanks to his casting as Donald Trump on NBC’s late-night staple, has heard from one member of the president’s inner circle. “I’m not going to name names, but a cabinet member walked up to me at a restaurant in Manhattan — Manhattan, that’s a hint — and he goes, ‘I gotta tell you something. This thing you’re doing is good, it’s really good,’ ” says the 59-year-old actor. “He goes, ‘I’ll get fired if anybody quoted me saying this, but that’s exactly what he’s like when you do it.’ ”

When Baldwin hosted the show for the 17th time this season, he had urged SNL executive producer Lorne Michaels and his staff to invite the president to join them in Studio 8H. “I would have loved to have had him,” says Baldwin, seated now in an SNL dressing room. A show spokesperson says the request was never made.