Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump impression isn’t particularly funny and hasn’t been for a while, but part of the reason Saturday Night Live dumps Baldwin in orange paint every week is because it drives the real Trump crazy—which, to be fair, is a little funny. Apparently, though, Trump’s predecessors in the White House weren’t quite as thin-skinned as he is, with Dana Carvey telling Conan O’Brien on tonight’s Conan that George H.W. Bush loved his SNL impression so much that the two actually became friends.
Carvey says that Bush invited he and his wife to the White House after Bush lost the election in 1992, and they “really hung out with him” and “really got to know” him and Barbara Bush—who just died last week. George Bush himself was taken into intensive care today with a blood infection, and whether it’s because of that or because the comedian and Bush are genuinely good friends, Carvey seems to have nothing but very nice things to say about the former president and first lady. He says the two of them had an “effortless” marriage and that they “just had so much fun together,” adding that Barbara Bush was “so witty and funny.”
The general vibe of the chat is that both sides are at fault for making politics so mean and bitter these days, which is unfair and disingenuous, but whatever.