Trump’s 2024 run brings renaissance for impersonators: ‘This will be a bonanza’
Republicans may be split on Donald Trump’s bid for the presidency, but at least one group of people woke up happy the morning after his announcement. “I’m totally energized,” said John Di Domenico, a Las Vegas-based comic who makes a living impersonating Trump at corporate events and parties. “We just got new booking requests today, and I keep getting texts from people who see this as another opportunity for me.”
After watching the events of January 6, Di Domenico wasn’t sure he would ever be able to put on his $4,000 wig and bronzer spray tan ever again. “There was a dip,” he said. The best way he can explain it: on Mother’s Day 2020, at the height of Trump’s re-election campaign, he shot 30 Cameo videos dressed as the president – short clips intended as gifts for his female fanbase.
But just a year later, after an insurrection, no one wanted to send their mom a gag gift spoofing the man who led the way. The quiet period only lasted a few months. “By that summer, things started coming back,” Di Domenico explained. He now charges “big Trumpers” between $6,000 to $7,500 for a 45-minute, custom-written set. This year he’s performed at a christening, Halloween party and some weddings.
Di Domenico has tried out other characters, but none have the former president’s staying power. “When it comes to a brand-crushing character, it’s Trump,” he said. “He’s known in huts in far away countries. No one is greater than Trump for recognition. I’m doing Ted Lasso at some events, and I love that character, but no one knows who the fuck he is. Only 5 million people have Apple TV. If you want someone who’s going to cut through, someone everybody has an opinion on, it’s Trump.”
Eric Jackman, an impersonator who lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire, said he’d had three new gig inquiries in the last 24 hours. “This announcement is going to be a bonanza again for Trump impersonators,” he said.
Back in 2016, after a video went viral showing Jackman’s Trump impersonation at a rally getting a thumbs up from the man himself, the impersonator was getting into costume every weekend for a new event. “I wonder if it will be like that this time around,” he said. “[The first campaign] was a fever pitch. I think that no matter what happens, people will care. There could be nuclear winter and people would still care.”
But a lot has changed for impersonators since 2016. During the campaign, when Trump was viewed primarily as a joke by those on the left, all kinds of people would hire a phony Trump for their party. Bob DiBuono performed at Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski’s engagement party in front of liberals like the then New York mayor, Bill de Blasio, and the frequent Trump critic Senator Chuck Schumer. He toured the country with the rapper YG, dancing onstage to the protest song Fuck Donald Trump. That probably won’t happen in the lead-up to 2024: most of his clients now are rightwing superfans.
Now, it’s mostly Trump fans who book. “Over the last six months, when people began catching wind that he may be coming back, I’ve been working pretty regularly,” DiBuono said. “I’ve been doing two to three events a week, corporate and private parties. I’m literally on a Trump tour across the country. People miss him. They can’t get their daily dose on TV or social media, so they celebrate their memory of when Trump was constantly out there. I’m kind of like a stripper: I fulfill their fantasy.”
Di Domenico, who has been impersonating Trump in some fashion since 2004, learned early on in the campaign that nothing can quite kill the demand. “Every time he does something that’s derogatory or discounting, it makes him stronger,” he said. “It’s like reverse kryptonite.”
During Trump’s time in office, Di Domenico lived and breathed the impression. He built a replica White House press podium in his house. (“I’ve never taken it down, because in his mind, he’s still president,” he quipped.)
Those four years were “a hellscape”, Di Domenico said, and it was difficult to keep the material feeling new. “My phone would be going off, and I’d think, what fresh hell is happening now? I’d write scripts, fly out to events, and something else major had happened, and then something else. It was old news by the time I landed,” he said.
The manic news cycle burned out some Trump fans. “Even when I do a very rightwing event these days, someone always comes back and says, ‘He needs to step aside, he’s exhausting,’” Di Domenico said. “It’s pretty remarkable a guy that age still has this much energy to reframe every situation to be about him.”
Though the Trump impression still keeps the lights on, Di Domenico said there was a new one he’d been asked to master. And it’s one the man who made him famous would be very unhappy with. “I’m at this meeting now, and they told me to do Ron DeSantis,” he said. “I have a round face and broad shoulders like him, and I was thinking I should crack the code on his voice.” He’s considering filming a mock debate between both men, using his impression skills – and the White House podium he never took down.