Trump Goes After "Alex" Baldwin and His "Dieing" Career

President Donald Trump returned to one of his favorite pastimes on March 2, taking to Twitter in the early morning hours to go after the man who plays him on TV: Alec Baldwin. Except the first attempt at an insult fell far, far flat of what he intended.

"Alex Baldwin, whose dieing mediocre career was saved by his impersonation of me on SNL, now says playing DJT was agony for him. Alex, it was also agony for those who were forced to watch. You were terrible. Bring back Darrell Hammond, much funnier and a far greater talent!" the president wrote in a now-deleted tweet at 5:43 a.m. ET in which he referred to Baldwin as "Alex" not once, but twice — and also misspelled "dying."

Twenty-five minutes later, at 6:08 a.m., the president tried again.

While the second tweet may have been more coherent, it's worth noting that this is not even remotely close to the first time that Trump has grappled with homophones; in fact, they've proved to be one of his biggest stumbling blocks since taking office.

It's also not a new revelation. While Baldwin told The Hollywood Reporter one day earlier that it was "agony" playing Trump on Saturday Night Live, he's been saying for more than a year that it hasn't been an easy road portraying the president on the small screen. Baldwin told Vanity Fair in March 2017 that "When Lorne called me and asked, 'Do you want to do this?,' I said, 'No, I don't want to be Trump on TV!'"

Ultimately, we're left wondering why the president isn't focused on bigger, more important things — such as the current blackout in Puerto Rico or the ongoing fight for gun control — but as we all know, there's little use understanding the president's motivations after he's gotten bad news — and it's clear that the Jared Kushner revelations and the loss of Communications Director Hope Hicks are, as reported, taking a toll on his ability to focus on what really matters.