A new ‘Trump.’ SNL’s Johnson is attracting attention for the imitation

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NEW YORK (AP) – With James Austin Johnson, “Saturday Night Live” features a new master impressionist whose confrontation with Donald Trump over the weekend was a breakout performance for the rookie.

Johnson nailed a stream-of-consciousness Trump in an opening segment on Saturday discussing the election of Republican Glenn Youngkin as governor of Virginia. Critics at Vulture and TheWrap said Johnson “stole the show,” or at least the cold tomorrow.

“‘ Saturday Night Live ’finally has a really great Trump impersonator,” wrote Dan Spinelli of Mother Jones. “Close your eyes and you’ll think new cast member James Austin Johnson is the real thing.”

Along with Youngkin, portrayed by cast member Alex Moffat, who looks uncomfortable on the split screen next to him, Johnson revolves around topics such as “Dune,” “Star Wars,” Chris Pratt and Santa Claus as a subject “countdown” reflecting “Pardon the Disruption” appears on the screen.

“Most people don’t like him but he’s a good person, OK? Tall, rich, like my children. Glenn, you look like my son, ”Johnson said of“ Trump. ”

“Please don’t say that,” Moffat replied.

Johnson, a 32-year-old stand-up comic from Nashville, Tennessee, has posed as President Joe Biden twice in five seasons, along with Adam Driver, Joe Buck, Jon Gruden, Lindsey Graham and Louis CK This is an unusually quick start for a new “SNL” player, especially now that the on-air cast has grown to 21 people.

The show did not make Johnson available for an interview on Monday. Even before he joined “Saturday Night Live,” he had already garnered attention for his imitations, especially of Trump. A video of Johnson, as Trump discusses Scooby Doo, has received more than 2.4 million views on Twitter since it was posted a year ago.

Regarding that presentation, Vice’s Josh Terry wrote last year that “there is something disturbing about how accurately Johnson channeled the rhythm, speech patterns and eccentricities of the president.”

While it’s unclear how much the news will dictate that Johnson will appear as Trump on “Saturday Night Live,” it’s clear that he’s the successor to Alec Baldwin, who made his last appearance as Trump after the 2020 election.

In an interview with Vice last year, Johnson said Baldwin brought “pure evil” to pretending to be Trump.

“A lot of the mainstream shows miss how much love there is for Trump,” he told Vice. “In the quest to depict him as the monster that, of course, I believe he is, they’re alienating some of the people who would otherwise laugh at their jokes. It’s really hard to laugh at Trump’s many descriptions. You don’t feel well. I just really want my comedy to be balm for being a fool. ”

But not everyone was happy to see Trump make a “reappearance” on the comedy show this past weekend.

Atlantic’s Molly Garber wrote that Johnson’s impersonation was “very good,” mocking Trump’s tendency to make himself unavoidable. However, giving Johnson the platform allows Trump to hijack its attention.

“‘SNL, for too long, has been so interested in Trump as a joke that it has ignored him as a threat,” Garber wrote. The latest episode “suggests that the show has looked back on years – and nothing has been learned.”

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