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Trump says ‘SNL’ is ‘mean-spirited,’ even though he likes Alec Baldwin

Even though he's hosted it before, President-elect Donald Trump thinks "SNL" is "terrible" and "mean-spirited."
(Gerry Broome / Associated Press)
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It appears Donald Trump has no plans to stop watching “Saturday Night Live.” Or stop tweeting about it.

On Wednesday during an interview on the “Today” show, Matt Lauer asked Trump about his habit of picking fights and sharing his grievances over Twitter. Specifically, Lauer was curious about Trump’s continued beef with “SNL.”

The president-elect has been a vocal critic of the comedy show, especially since Alec Baldwin portrayed him in various skits throughout the campaign. Trump has taken to Twitter multiple times to call the show “boring and unfunny” and accuse it of being “totally one-sided” and “biased.” In fact, the most recent “SNL” skit, which Trump complained was “unwatchable,” poked fun at his frequent tweeting.

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“Can we agree, president-elect Trump, that at this stage it would be better for you to simply stop watching ‘SNL’ as opposed to watching it and then complaining about it?” asked Lauer.

But Trump couldn’t agree.

“Well, I hosted ‘SNL’ when it was a good show, but it’s not a good show anymore,” replied Trump.

“There’s nothing funny about it. The skits are terrible.

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“I mean, I like Alec, but his imitation of me is really mean-spirited and not very good. I don’t think it’s good,” he continued. “And I do like him, and I like him as an actor, but I don’t think that his imitation of me gets me at all. And it’s meant to be very mean-spirited, which is very biased. And I don’t like it. So I can tweet that out.”

“But you can’t bring yourself to stop watching it?” Lauer followed up.

“No. Look, frankly, the way the show is going now, and you look at the kind of work they’re doing, who knows how long that show is going to be on? It’s a terrible show,” said Trump, Time magazine’s newly named Person of the Year.

Earlier in the interview Trump explained how he thinks he has been “very restrained” in his use of Twitter since the election, and he defended his continued use of the social media platform.

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“Frankly, it’s a modern-day form of communication...,” said Trump. “I get it out much faster than a press release. I get it out much more honestly than dealing with dishonest reporters because so many reporters are dishonest.”

Watch the segment below.

tracy.brown@latimes.com

Twitter: @tracycbrown

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