Newspaper apologises for confusing Trump with Baldwin

A national newspaper in the Dominican Republic has apologised for printing a picture of Alec Baldwin impersonating Donald Trump rather than an image of the US President himself.

The newspaper confused Donald Trump with Alec Baldwin. Picture: El Nacional/AP

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The mistake went unnoticed by staff, according to the paper.

It appears that El Nacional was tricked by the actor’s impression of the leader on satirical programme Saturday Night Live (SNL). A picture of Baldwin in a blonde wig, captioned as President Trump, was used to illustrate a story about Israeli settlements on page 19.

The headline read: “Trump says settlements in Israel don’t favour peace.”

The picture of Netanyahu was correct

Baldwin’s picture was printed alongside an image of Benjamin Netanyahu, which correctly showed the Israeli Prime Minister.

El Nacional said staff did not notice that the photo placed above the caption, “Donald Trump, president of the USA,” was a mistake.

“El Nacional apologises to its readers and anyone who felt affected by the publication,” it added in a statement.

Baldwin’s impersonations of Mr Trump have been making semi-regular appearances on SNL lately, much to the irritation of the President.

The commander-in-chief once said that the show was “not funny” and had “terrible” casting. “Always a complete hit job. Really bad television,” he added.

Baldwin’s latest impersonation

The latest impersonation saw Baldwin satirise the leader for saying “see you in court” after judges from a federal appeals court blocked his executive order to ban citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US. The sketch featured “The People’s Court,” with actress Cecily Strong as the judge, who said:

“Mr. Trump, you understand that this is a TV court, right?”

Baldwin replied: “That’s OK, I’m a TV president.” President Trump has not commented on El Nacional’s mistake or the latest SNL sketch.

The President’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, has also provided material for SNL.

He labelled an impersonation of him by actress Melissa McCarthy as “mean”.

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