In the blasted, blustering, hacky hellscape of TV Donald Trump impressions, finding a fresh take on the current occupant of the White House is harder than finding a Trump administration figure not under criminal investigation. You’ve got your high-profile, wig-dependent pickers of low-hanging fruit (Alec Baldwin, Jimmy Fallon). There’s Stephen Colbert’s in-monologue asides as Trump, which are solid punctuation to the actual jokes. (Although Colbert’s bite-sized Trump is better than Jeff Bergman’s too-broad iteration in the Colbert-produced Our Cartoon President.) Comedy Central really needs to bring back The President Show, as Anthony Atamanuik remains the gold (or orange) standard, the comedian’s Trump delving deeper into what passes for the presidential psyche than anyone else.
But don’t sleep on John Di Domenico, especially in his frequent call-ins to Conan O’Brien. On Wednesday’s Conan, Di Domenico’s channel-surfing Trump fell for Conan’s bait (flashing a shiny Fox & Friends chyron on screen for just a moment) and called in to rant, brag, and ask for fashion advice from his go-to blow-dried, ego-propping propagandist Steve Doocy. Conan, luring the thus-deceived Trump into his clutches, peppered his prey with questions as Doocy, Di Domenico’s Trump not noticing the switch. (Although Trump did claim to miss “the hot blonde,” a quick pan to Andy Richter seemed to placate him.) Di Domenico’s soundalike Trump has come to introduce a doddering, increasingly delusional note to his bombastic self-promotion, as he, here, seemed to forget the reason why he he keeps holding campaign rallies a year and a half after winning the election. (To be fair, we’re all confused about that one.) He also basked in the unwavering support of his base, telling Conan-Doocy that he “played all the hits” at his most recent pep rally (“Lock her up,” attacking black athletes, scary Mexicans), and asking the confused Conan-Doocy to help him choose between two ties over the phone.
Things really went off the tracks when Conan almost gave the game away by mentioning the fact that both Trump’s prison-bound campaign manager and personal lawyer are clearly cutting deals against him, but Di Domenico’s Trump just careened right ahead anyway. After Conan-Doocy noted the increasingly apt Watergate comparisons being made to the daily revelations of his administration’s rampant, thankfully inept treachery, the fact-averse Trump simply applied his standby “fake news” defense to U.S. history. “Watergate never happened,” Trump pronounced, before rewriting the past so that Nixon, in fact, lost the 1972 election to former Celebrity Apprentice winner Bret Michaels. Which is nonsense, as no one who was ever on Celebrity Apprentice is remotely qualified to hold public office of any kind.