VIDEO: Watch Alec Baldwin's TV Hosting Debut on MSNBC

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Alec Baldwin made his debut last night on MSNBC with UP LATE WITH Alec Baldwin that premiered on October 11 at 10 pm. On last night's show, Baldwin talked to Democratic mayor candidate Bill DeBlasio about his plans for the city, and hosted the guest for the entire hour on his new set, which resembled a diner. He's aiming to differ from other shows by having guests on for the full hour with deeper talks. Did he succceed? Check out the video...

Baldwin is well known for his portrayal of 'Jack Donaghy' on NBC's 30 Rock, and often hosts the network's Saturday Night Live. Baldwin's Blue Jasmine just hit theaters, and the actor will next appear on the big screen in Caught Stealing.

Baldwin appeared on Broadway this summer in Orphans. His other stage credits include Twentieth Century, Short Talks on the Universe, A Streetcar Named Desire, Serious Money and Loot, as well as off-Broadway's Entertaining Mr. Sloane, South Pacific, Macbeth and Prelude to a Kiss.

Here's how the show opened:

>> thank you so much. america's largest city has been run by a billionaire media mogul for the last 12 years. but that's about to change. my guest for The Hour is heavily favored to become the first democrat in 20 years to serves new york city mayors. the entire country is watching to see whether bill de blasio will enact the policies he's running on and whether they will work. he was a dark horse to ran to the left of the democratic -- telling a tale of two cities, the haves and have knots. de blasio is promising a real break from the bloomberg era. i was a supporter of his, but the question remains what can any mayor do about inquality on america's home turf. by de blasio tonight, up late.

>>> the premise of your campaign has been about addressing inequality. and what i'll call the big three points that you made are you want to have universal prek, you want to build 200,000 units of affordable housing in the city, and you want to raise taxes on people earning $500,000 or more. my question is, what i don't see here is job creation. and how do you think -- do you think that job creation is a priority for your administration and how do those things address job creation.

>> it's absolutely a priority. i think you're exactly right. the focus is on addressing inequality. it takes many formed in this city. but to achieve job creation is one about a city government aggressively focusing not just job creation but jobs that will reach people less advantaged and accident wages and benefits. so it's a bigger conception of job creation than has been recognized in government. and we talk about the affordability crisis in this city. one part of it the dumbing down of wages and benefits. but the other part is the lack of affordable housing. my 200,000 units of affordable housing will help people to have a more affordable lifestyle but in the process, job construction in the maintenance of the buildings and then to make sure those jobs reach -- our traffic is to make sure the jobs reach the residents of the five burrows. so a lot of pieces of this plan come with an inherent element to them.

>> the manufacturing jobs have been collapsing and even in the last 12 years we've lost 50%. we were reading where it said 50% of manufacturing jobs have ev evaporated between 2000 and 2011.

>> well, the quest to ashds inequality inherently means defineding government as a force in the administration. no one who understands history would say that the market inherently takes care of all the issues. it is the roll of government to be the balance, correct. i have a very aggressive vision of how we do that. now the current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, the free market tier that he always said he was, and the inkwee quality crisis grew and grew. and he did not think it was right for the government to intervene. for example, when i talk about creating affordable housing, i said you need to use our public pension fund dollars. that's using public assets aggressively and strategically. the mayor did not agree with that. i think what we're going to be confronting here in new york city and beyond, is a time that the government is going to have to work harder to address a crisis of inequality. when we were coming up, of course there were rich and poor. but there was immense opportunity. what's happened since reagan is a downward pressure on -- clear decline of The Middle class. greater and greater income disparity. and then we got hit --

>> we're just a more expensive role perhaps. as wages go down and benefits go down and as good middle class jobs go down, in order for the government to step in and perform that balancing act, it costs more and more money. at what point i'm wondering -- in new york for example, there are people who exist in a manhattan sen assess nexus. you're an -- you're a nonmanhattan to become mayor since be. ne. but why is it you don't say to yourself or the fathers, the economic fathers, and mothers of the city, don't sit there and say, well, let's just let manhattan become bel aire, california. let them make as much money as they want and you tax that money and chief all the goals that you want to with all the affordable housing. do you believe people have a right or do you want to subsidize their preference to live in manhattan. do you agree with what i'm saying?

>> i want to respond and frame it a little differently. it's not a question are we trying to ignore market realities and say manhattan is an easy place for lower income folks to live. it does not resemble the manhattan historically true of this city. but i think what i key in on here is bloomberg literally had a vision of the new york city as of high-end of the economy, the industries that we would embrace, tech, wall street, it would be luxury housing, that narrow vision has helped to exacerbate the inequality of the city. as we build affordable housing, we're still cognizant of the market housing. we're not suggesting we can drop that down at any time and any manner. it's got to be in development with what's already happening. with that Being said, if we continue on a path in which we constantly exclude poor folks, working class folks, now even more folks that you and i would consider middle class folks, i don't think it becomes a functioning city in the future. i think a functioning strongsy is one in which opportunity is broughtly available.

>> burrow by burrow?

>> all burrows. but the point is there has to be not just a ree alty of opportunities stand are substantiating to expand again in a truly meaningful way. one that we know every person has a chance. many people are in structurely negative place in terms of employment. so whoopz in the bloomberg years it's not all because of him. tourism has been developed and it's been developed around minimum wage jobs, often no benefits, and so people get a job but not a job they can live on. how does government intervene to push up wages and benefits? i think we have a lot of tools to do it. starting with the money we spend ourself in government. starting with our ability to decide on firms that get subsidiaries, what kind of conditions we put.

>> what's an example of something you change in that area.

>> living wage legislation is a great example. it says if you get a government discuss subsidiary and not in the affordable housing or nonprofits, you get a government subsidiary, we're going to require you to pay $10 an hour if they get benefit and $11 if they don't.

>> what's the biggest benefit of that?

>> a lot of people in the private sector don't want to pay that. if you're getting a subsidiary and getting private dollars to help you do your work, and we're the most lucrative part of the country, so you've got to pay them better so we can function better as a society. and by the way, if we don't do that, guess who ends up paying the bill? taxpayers. as people are failing and families can't make it, taxpayer taxpayers have to bear the burden. if you want to argue it practically, if you don't at the front end of the process improve people's incomes and benefits, even just a little, we'll pay on the back end.

>> of those three things i mentioned, universal prek and the tax raise and housing, two of them depend in some part on the one, on the tax raise. but you yourself, nor does any mayor have the authority to raise taxes. the state plays a big roll in that, correct?

>> of course.

>> what's your relationship with cuomo?

>> it's great. a very close personal relationship.

>> is he going to want to raise taxes?

>> we've heard him talk over years on his vision of taxation. today we're here in a new situation.

>> what are you going to say to persuade him?

>> i'm going to show --

>> or whatever.

>> i'm going to show -- you're --

>> no no.

>> i'm going to show him that there's tremendous popular support. because i know there will be for the notion of asking the wealthy to do a little more. by the way, the tax rate i proposed is no higher than Michael Bloomberg set it in --

>> to off set the crisis.

>> it's a crisis -- to explain for people who don't know, bloomberg raised taxes to 4.9% right after 9/11.

>> and i'm talking about raise them to 4.4. so the bottom line --

>> just for good measure.

>> exactly. in terms of albany, one it's been popular support. if people are saying, yeah, it is fair to ask the wealthy to do a little more, yes our kids are not Being served by the school system and not enough focus on early childhood and we need to do this. point one. point two, i think we're going to make the argument that we're falling behind as a city, state, country if we don't focus on early child mood education. and there's a growing understanding in the public debate. look at china, india, germany. they're all running to make sure that they're children get early childhood education.

>> and every where i go, i hear people say that that's a life changing thing for them to have universal prek for working mothers. but that's a long-term goal. that's where the dividends will be paid in the long-term, correct?

>> long-term. but not that far in the future. goes into prek at the age of four and be in the work force ten years potentially. and if you don't make it soon, you -- simple point. the amount of education that you have determines your economic destiny that is more true today than -- the amount of education needed for economic success has gone up intensely. 30% of american children at the angle of four get all day prek. 40% that's all. in this city, 50,000 kids get something less than full day prek.

>> when we talk about your raising taxes and are you rur relationship with cuomo in the state. let's say he decides to run for some nationwide office, that would perhaps call into question how do your policies and his relationship with you and your policies play outside the city? ? what happens if bill de blasio wants statewide and nationwide office? do the things that you want only exist in new york city with a lot of --

>> as i'm going to cross this city talking to people over the last year, the profound sense of crisis, you know, you just need to talk to new yorkers for a few minutes to start to realize something different is going on now. people feel economically insecure. they know their children are not Being prepared for the future. and they feel that government has to address it. i think the combination of saying, we will take this challenge on head on, you're not going to sweep it under a rug, we have to focus on early childhood education if we expect to address the needs of this city and the state and one. and second, that the weldy are now surpassing their previous status and look at the state of the stock market. they're setting records recently, all-time highs. it is fair to ask the wealthy to do a little more. you look at for example some of the polling about this election that we're having here in new york city, striking of number of independents and republicans agree with some of the ideas that i'm putting forward. i think in terms of our governor, i believe that he'll see that there's a growing support for the motion of addressing these issues. and i think that will be persuasive to him in the legislatu legislature.

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