GLENN: Hello, America. And welcome to the Glenn Beck Program. You're going to appreciate this much more, if you're watching us. But give us 30 seconds if you're on radio, and you will appreciate it just as much. We have a guest in the former Oval. Go ahead. Pan over to him. We begin there, right now.
(music)
JOHN: Good morning, everybody.
GLENN: Honestly, I don't even know how to introduce. I don't even know how to introduce. Other than this is the guy you see on Conan all the time. And I think he's the real -- I think he's the real deal. I think this is -- how are you?
JOHN: I'm fantastic. So excited to be here. Tremendous. You guys are amazing. I don't any of you, but I think you're great. And Glenn has been so supportive of me for so long. He's said such wonderful things about me. And on his latest book -- I'm on the cover, and that's why it's a million seller. I'm on the cover. Did you notice that? None of his other books have done well. Why would you write a book on broke? Bad move. Bad move.
I have to tell you, stupid, stupid title. But I like you, though, you're good. I've written a lot of books too. A lot of books. Best-selling books.
GLENN: Right. But I haven't really been helpful for you.
JOHN: Really? You haven't?
GLENN: No.
JOHN: In that case, you're a lightweight loser. You're doing a terrible job. I've always said you're terrible. I've always said that from the beginning. Now that I know this about you.
GLENN: Right. Right.
JOHN: Really amazing. You were on CNN, you blew that gig. Then you were on Fox, you blew that gig. Now we're in this place. Folks, we're in a double wide trailer, I don't think you know -- realize that. He's not doing well, believe me.
GLENN: John Di Domenico is the voice you're hearing right now, doing Donald Trump. And the hair -- how much -- I mean, how did you do -- I mean, how much did that hair cost?
JOHN: That's four grand.
GLENN: Seriously? Four grand? That hair?
JOHN: Yeah. I have three of these.
PAT: Four thousand dollars? Wow.
GLENN: And they're not 4,000 each.
JOHN: Yeah, they're 4,000 each.
GLENN: Shut the hell up.
JOHN: Yeah. They take 90 hours to make. They're -- every single hair is hand-pulled.
GLENN: I don't know if he's -- I don't know if you're doing --
JOHN: Well, I'm kind of in between.
I can tell you about the hair. It's Trump hair. Tremendous hair. Best hair --
GLENN: Right. Okay. So drop the -- drop the effect here for a second. Talk to me about the hair.
JOHN: Okay. The hair is -- the hair is -- the very first wig I ever had was made by Bob Kelly. He used to do all the wigs for all the Broadway shows and Saturday Night Live. And this goes back at least 12 years ago.
And those wigs are human hair wigs that are hand-pulled. They measure my head, and then they build a frame. And then they just pull the hairs through. And it's called ventilating. That's why the hair -- your hair goes in different directions. Grows in different directions. So they ventilate the wig so it's closest to the actual style. I get three or four wears out of this. Then it has to be washed.
GLENN: How many wears out of this?
JOHN: Three or four.
PAT: That's it?
JOHN: No, no, no. Then they go to my wig person. They wash and style it. Because once there's too much product in it, it just -- it is human hair. So it's got to be restyled and redone.
JEFFY: I need a wig person.
JOHN: Yeah.
GLENN: You need three or four of these wigs?
JOHN: Well, because I'm always traveling. So I'll go home for a couple of hours. Switch out wigs. My wig person will come by, pick them up and then wash one or two.
GLENN: This has been tremendous for you as a human being, hasn't it? I mean, you're hoping for eight years.
JOHN: Oh, yeah.
GLENN: Country could be on fire. And you're, still like, whatever.
JOHN: Yeah, I don't care. Rome is burning.
(laughter)
GLENN: So is it amazing to you that nobody could do -- nobody had the balls to put an impression of Barack Obama on television. They all said, oh, he wasn't funny.
JOHN: I don't think he had -- comedically, there's just not -- there's something there -- there's such a well with Trump. And it goes back so far. You look at his lexicon. You look at statements that he's made. You look at where he's been. How he's done it. There's just this reservoir of material. And, you know, Barack Obama was so guarded, that the most you could do was, here's a deal. You know, there just wasn't a lot to pull out. Comedically, he's so guarded. But you have somebody like Bill Clinton, he was much easier to like -- there was just more comedy to mine from somebody --
GLENN: Did you think -- because you've been doing Donald Trump for how many years?
JOHN: Since 2004.
GLENN: And you really studied him.
JOHN: Oh, yeah.
GLENN: You're looking at me like he does, and sitting in this room, which is the Oval.
JOHN: Which is the Oval Office. Which I now own. I bought the White House. Great view, by the way.
GLENN: Right.
JOHN: No one makes deals like me, I have to tell you.
GLENN: Right. So --
(laughter)
You really have to -- go to GlennBeck.com and watch this. You have to watch it. It's so funny.
PAT: That's great.
GLENN: The -- when you studied in the beginning of 2004, just because he was a great character?
JOHN: No, what happened was -- I worked in the New York market, and I always got calls for tougher voices, for voiceovers. I do about 30 characters, full makeup. And I gotten the call, and somebody said, "Hey, are you doing Donald Trump yet?"
And this was the first season. The Apprentice had just ended. And I said, no, not really. Said, we have an audition on Monday for you, if you can learn the voice.
So I was like, jeez.
And I said, give me an hour. And I did some real quick research. And the only person at the time who was doing it at all was Phil Hartman on SNL, and he had done it on Church Lady a number of times.
So I didn't really have a lot of resource material to really draw from. So I ran out and bought that first season of The Apprentice that just happened to come out.
And I sat there, locked myself in my house, and I broke his voice down by elements, which is throat placement, nasal placement, vocal production, cadence, and that's how I kind of usually break voices down. And then I worked on figuring out -- he doesn't sound like anyone from New York. So I had to figure out --
JEFFY: Right.
JOHN: So I wanted to find a voice similar to his. And the only person that I knew other than him from Queens was another guy who spoke in a very, very staccato way, like Christopher Walken.
GLENN: Walken. Yeah.
JOHN: And Walken, you wouldn't necessarily think is a New Yorker if you hear him speak.
JEFFY: No, you wouldn't.
JOHN: And Trump when he speaks, you don't necessarily think of him as a New Yorker, unless he uses certain words.
(laughter)
GLENN: Does it help -- did you pick up the mannerisms? Does that help you --
JOHN: It helps me. It helps me. Yeah. Especially when I'm doing voiceovers and things like that. Even when I'm doing the Conan calls, I'm buying furniture in my house. Because I have a small studio in my house, and I'm whacking the mic and everything else.
But it's just such a big part of who he is because it really -- I have to tell you, tremendous. Tremendous. You know. Even when he was on the -- when he was at the CIA. You know, watching one of the news -- one I don't like. I don't like it.
And they say, Donald Trump doesn't draw. He's so physical. And it's a very dynamic impersonation. He's very dynamic, in that two years ago, he wasn't this physical. And he constricts his voice and he loosens his voice. And he's going up and going down. And things he had never done early on. Because he used to be, Glenn, your team did a terrible job, you're fired. That was it.
Guys, you're selling lemonade. That was the most you saw of him.
GLENN: Right.
JOHN: And it seemed the more he was on the campaign trail, especially with these stump speeches, he just became looser and looser.
GLENN: At what point did you think to yourself, I've got a freaking gold mine?
JOHN: I just knew -- people were calling me as soon as he announced. Friends. Because I had been doing him so long. And said, dude, you're set. You're set, man. It's going to be incredible.
And I said, hold on. Let's see if he doesn't implode first. Because four years before, he had run. He was toying with running. And I remember at the very end of -- literally the day before he dropped out, he was speaking in front of the -- I live in Las Vegas. He was speaking at a Las Vegas Republican women's group, and he dropped the F bomb three times.
And I remember thinking, he's dropping out. He dropped out the next day. Because he kind of lays the groundwork before he does something. And he dropped the three F bombs, and everyone was shocked. And he was out the next day. When he announced this last time in June of 2015, I thought, okay. Well, let's -- let's see what happens, if the work starts coming in.
And we were about a month in, and he made the John McCain comments. And I thought, well, that was a good run. That was -- yeah. I guess I'll go back to Austin Powers. It was really -- and then his number went up. And his numbers kept going up. And I thought, "You know what, if he can make it to the first debate, I'm set for the fall. I'm set for the fall." And then he did that first debate, and he crushed it. And the phone started ringing off the hook.
And by that time, I was on Red Eye on Fox, and I had already been on Conan. And other calls were happening. And the corporate work was coming in. And voiceovers were -- it already started. And then by August of this past year, 2016, I was being interviewed by the -- not the BBC, by Channel 4. They had flown me to DC to do some interviews. And most of the interviews I did last year -- I did a ton of them. They always said, who are you voting for? Which I always thought was a dumb question. Who cares who I'm voting for?
They said, "Who do you think will win?" And I said, "Trump will win in a landslide." I had been on the road for well over a year now. I've done hundreds of events. It doesn't matter what corporate group I do or where I do it. It's always overwhelmingly for Trump. And --
GLENN: What is it that the media missed?
JOHN: They missed the fact --
GLENN: Say it like Trump.
JOHN: They missed the fact that people are upset. They want a leader. They want someone with bravado. They want someone who has real accomplishments and someone who is going to say whatever he wants to say. And that was the thing that he missed, that he --
GLENN: Do you believe he is that caricature? Because people always say, when they meet with him, he's a totally different guy? So which is he? What is he?
JOHN: Well, you know, that's a great question. I say to people, you'll see he's different in different situations. Even when he's doing interviews. If he's being interviewed by Sean Hannity, he's one way. If it's Bill O'Reilly, it's another way. If it's Scott Pelley, it's another way. He assumes different styles each time.
GLENN: Right. But they're still all him.
JOHN: They're still all him, yeah. But I think when he's -- when he's out and about, you know -- if you've seen -- he's a certain way. This is tremendous. Look at this place. This is amazing. This is an amazing event. I have to tell you, it's incredible. Best of the best.
So I think what was missed was the fact that he's -- he -- he -- the enthusiasm part was so important. They didn't get the fact that people were really enthusiastic about him. And they were incredibly unenthusiastic about Hillary. And I remember this clearly. I was in New York, which was pretty much Hillary country. I was doing an event, about 500 people. And I do this bit in the act, where I come out, and basically I say, I've been told there's over 5,000 people here today. It's usually a much smaller crowd. The press -- the press -- terrible people, the press. They're going to say there's 400 and we're in a banquet hall. Terrible.
And I say, just -- listen, listen, listen, we're all friends here. Right? We're all friends, right? I just want to do a quick poll, quick poll. Who here wants to ruin the country and vote for crooked Hillary? And the Clinton -- these were the people voting for her. It was so unenthusiastic. And this was a less than a quarter of the group. He said, all right, who is going to vote for me and make the country great again? Overwhelmingly, it was him.
GLENN: These were Clinton people. In Clinton country.
JOHN: You would think in New York, yeah. And I remember, early on, I was at a hotel in San Diego of all places -- I'm constantly on the road. Constantly in hotels, airports. I mean, in character, I'm in hotels.
And I would walk down to my room one time, and the cleaning lady said, Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump, can I get a photo of you, Mr. Trump?
And I said, sure, of course. What's your name?
My name is Esmeralda, Mr. Trump.
And I said, are you going to vote for me?
Goes, yes, I'm going to vote for you, Mr. Trump. I love you.
You love me?
Yes, I love you, Mr. Trump. I want you to build the wall.
That happened like five times.
JEFFY: Yeah, I bet.
GLENN: Wow.
JOHN: I had a Muslim driver in New York. I was out of character. They picked me up at the airport. And the guy said --
GLENN: But you're dressed like this?
JOHN: No, I was in street clothes. I was in street clothes. And he said, what do you do? And I said, oh, I'm a comedian.
He said, what kind of comedy?
And I said, oh, I'm a personator.
He's like, who do you do?
And I said, oh, Dr. Phil. Dr. Evil. Donald Trump.
Donald! You do Mr. Trump! You do Mr. Trump!
And I said, yeah. I do Donald Trump. And I mentioned the different stuff.
He goes, I love Donald Trump. I love Donald Trump.
I said, really? I said, why? He goes, he's going to draw a line between me and the terrorists. I love America. I love America. And he's going to draw a line.
PAT: That's great. Wow.
JOHN: I was thinking, wow, I never -- and I took all these things. And I was like, all these things are happening. I'm thinking, this guy is going to win. It doesn't seem -- every corner.
GLENN: What is the one thing -- you know what, I have to take a quick break. We'll come right back.
JOHN: Sure.
