Alec Baldwin lashed out at liberal late-night hosts John Oliver and Stephen Colbert, insisting that they have help turn talk shows into “grand juries” in the court of public opinion.
“Talk shows were once promotional pit stops for some blithe chit chat about movies, etc,” Baldwin wrote on Twitter Wednesday. “Now the likes of @iamjohnoliver and @StephenAtHome have flipped that and they are beginning to resemble grand juries.”
Baldwin, his late-night impressions of President Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live notwithstanding, also appeared to take issue with Oliver’s grilling of Dustin Hoffman over allegations of sexual harassment. Monday at a Tribeca Film panel.
“I believe that, in terms of a criminal code or any wrong doing, there are gradations. Our system recognizes a misdemeanor from a felony and so forth. What Hoffman did several years ago was vulgar/offensive/ crude. But was it done with malice?” Baldwin wrote, referencing claims that Hoffman sexually harassed a 17-year-old high school student while filming 1985 TV movie Death of a Salesman.
Baldwin appeared to suggest that Hoffman’s alleged behavior was thought differently upon decades ago.
In an appearance Thursday on Megyn Kelly Today, the 30 Rock star said that people like disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein deserve to be punished while others, like Hoffman, don’t.
“It’s really really tough because you certainly want to see everyone who is guilty of something, who has done bad things, wrong things and hurt people you want to see those people get punished but I don’t want to see other people get pulled into that… there’s a lot of accusations and no proof yet. I don’t want to see people get hurt,” Baldwin told Kelly.
“For me what’s different, is that what’s odd, yes there are people, this is no excuse, but 40 years ago there was a kind of way that people had, a kind of sexualized byplay, a kind of fooling around that was wrong,” Baldwin said of Hoffman. “You look back and you say it was wrong then but it seemed to be less problematic than it is now. Where we live now is that are a lot of things you just don’t do anymore.”
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson
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