trump baldwin
Alec Baldwin explains key to Trump impression
01:22 - Source: CNN

Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show” and a columnist for The Daily Beast. Follow him @DeanObeidallah. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.

CNN  — 

Another day, another Donald Trump Twitter attack on someone — or something — that got under his skin. So who was the “lucky” person this time? None other than actor, “Alex” Baldwin.

Yes, we all know his name is spelled “Alec,” but when you combine an apparently angry Trump with the fact it was 5:42 in the morning, you get a tweet with spelling errors like these: “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!”

Baldwin did say that playing Trump was agony — he also commented that anyone would be more “ethically, morally, intellectually and spiritually” qualified to be president than Trump.

About 20 minutes after unleashing this typo-laden tweet, Trump deleted it and reposted it with no spelling errors. Trump must have really been furious at Baldwin to take the time to delete that first tweet and then retype an entirely new, spell-checked one.

Now only if Trump would get as angry at Vladimir Putin for attacking our elections in 2016 as he does with the people who mock him personally.

According to the New York Times, Trump has slammed more than 425 individual “people, places and things” on Twitter over the years. You name it and Trump has mocked it on Twitter. That is, of course, except for one, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. That’s right – the head of the Russian government that our intelligence agencies have confirmed attacked our 2016 elections has somehow escaped Trump’s Twitter crosshairs.

This week, Trump even publicly attacked his own attorney general Jeff Sessions (again). Maybe Trump only thinks his phone is for tweeting and not calling people in his own administration to discuss this stuff.

Trump’s Twitter attacks aren’t limited to domestic targets; he has never hesitated to mock North Korean leader Kim Jong Un or even allies like Theresa May.

All of this makes it even more surprising that Trump would spare Putin his Twitter tantrums, especially given the jaw-dropping testimony two weeks ago by the Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats before the US Senate that “the United States is under attack” by the Russian government in terms of our 2018 elections. Coats added, “There should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 US midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations.”

With all that, you’d think Trump would be taking to Twitter almost daily slamming Putin as a “loser” or as being “crooked” like he has called so many others on social media. Trump hasn’t even given Putin a mocking nickname like he has with “Rocket Man” Kim Jong-Un or his reportedly new one for Jeff Sessions, “Mr. Magoo.”

Instead, Trump has actually defended Putin and remains unconvinced that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections despite the findings of our intelligence agencies.

Trump even took to Twitter to make the case for better relations with Russia as recently as November 2017, writing that the “haters and fools” don’t realize that “having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing.”

Of course the bigger issue isn’t that Trump has shielded Putin from Twitter tirades or nicknames. It’s that Trump more importantly won’t impose new sanctions on Russia, despite a law overwhelmingly recently passed by Congress to punish them for attacking our elections.

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    It’s past time for Trump to channel his anger not at “Alex Baldwin” or comedy shows and instead direct it squarely at Putin. After all, Baldwin and programs like the Emmys only attack Trump with jokes – Putin has attacked our nation’s democracy.