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Hello and welcome to Trumpcast. I'm Virginia Heffernan. When Trumpcast inventor Jacob

Weisberg handed off this show to me, one of the best parts of the deal was that it came with John D. Domenico.

You all know this. John writes and performs brilliant sketches for Trumpcast and he is the show's true ace.

Of course, he's hands down the best Trump impersonator, but for him doing impersonations isn't the

most technical affair. It is for some actors who imitate celebrities. More than anyone alive,

John has managed to cultivate actual empathy for Trump. I mean, think about it. He has to take Trump's

gestures into his hands, his phonemes into his mouth, and his vanity into his jaws and shoulders.

John can attest that every time we do an event together, I pepper him with questions about how Trump is doing.

Because at every stage of Trump's campaign and presidency, John has had to study him and

gird up to go back into Trump's head and see how he, John, might inhabit it. It's hard even to

count up how many skills are required to do what John does. And while it's fun to play villains,

it's hard as James Gandalfini found playing Tony soprano to embody them. So John's work takes a

strong stomach too. The earliest idea of Trumpcast was that it would provide as many ways as possible

to look at and understand this disconcerting-looking mammal who was transitioning from

Oliogeness racist game show host to despotic politician with fascist kinks. We've had lawyers and

...