Donald Trump suggested actor Alex Baldwin might have intentionally shot two colleagues -- killing one -- while filming a movie.
The actor fatally shot cinematographer Halyana Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza after assistant director David Halls allegedly handed him a loaded .45 handgun, but the twice-impeached one-term president baselessly suggested the actor -- who famously lampooned him on "Saturday Night Live" -- might have had sinister motives.
"He's a troubled guy," Trump told conservative radio host Chris Stigall, who had asked him for comment on the case. "There's something wrong with him. I've watched him for years. He gets into fistfights with reporters. Look, I don't like reporters -- I like some, some are great, some are talented, but you don't get into fistfights. I mean, everything he does, he's a volatile guy. He's a nutjob."
Trump expressed certainty he would have handled the situation with more caution.
"If they handed me a gun, I would never point it at somebody and shoot it, you know," Trump said. "I don't care about checking the gun, you know, you can look at [it] any which way, you know, you've been reading the same articles that I have and seeing what I've been seeing. They hand you a gun, Chris, you're not going to point it at somebody, and then this was really a cinematographer, so it's not even like an actress that's on set with you, this was a cinematographer, so that means he took the gun and pointed it at a cinematographer, pulled the trigger and she was dead. It's weird, it's not doable, and then they're outside, I think just by natural [instinct]. You know, they're outside in this big open space, there's nobody around, I think I would have pointed it up in the air, but you can also look to see if it's loaded. But who would take a gun and point it at a cinematographer and pull the trigger, and she's dead."
Investigators have been examining the chain of custody for the firearm to determine how live ammunition ended up in the gun, but Trump suggested that Baldwin himself might have loaded it.
"I can't imagine anybody -- as bad as it may have been kept, meaning, you know, the people who take care of the equipment and the guns and everything else, but even if it was loaded, and, you know, that's a weird thing, maybe he loaded it," Trump said. "Who -- remember this -- who would put a gun, 'Here, Alex, here's your gun,' 'Oh, good,' lift it up, point it at a person, and pull the trigger, and, 'Oh, man, a bullet came out,' she's dead. So there's something wrong with him, he's a sick guy."
Then the former president then ranted at length about Baldwin's impression of him.
"He did, I thought, a poor job of, you know, imitating me," Trump said. "Darrell Hammond did a great job, if you remember Darrell Hammond from 'Saturday Night Live.' Darrell Hammond was really talented. Alec Baldwin was terrible at imitating me, I thought. I thought he was really terrible and, you know -- and, by the way, if I thought he was good and I didn't like his politics or I didn't like him, I would have said he was good. But he was terrible, but they had him on for years doing this stuff. But I don't like him or dislike him, I don't actually know him, but I've watched him over the years because of the fact that he did this so much on 'Saturday Night Live.'"
"I've watched him, and he's a cuckoo bird, he's a nutjob," Trump added, "and usually when there's somebody like that, you know, he, in my opinion, he had something to do with it, but if nothing else, how do you take a gun, whether it's loaded or not loaded, how do you take a gun, point it at somebody that's not even in the movie, and just point it at this person and pull the trigger, and now she's dead."
