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Performer John Di Domenico Shares Stories From Las Vegas After the Shooting

October 02, 2017
Staff

WRITER

John Di Domenico, a performer known for his spot-on impersonations of President Donald Trump, was part of the entertainment community in Las Vegas when he lived there for six years. He shared his thoughts and emotions after the tragic shooting late Sunday night.

Several of his friends were attending the Jason Aldean concert where a gunman fired across the crowd to kill dozens of people and wound more than 500. At least 58 people have died in the biggest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Despite the fear and shock, his friends shared stories of self-sacrifice that they witnessed in front of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

“People really dig down and figure out how to focus and help others,” Di Domenico said.

This article provided courtesy of TheBlaze.

DOC: It's Doc Thompson in for Glenn Beck. I'm regularly heard on TheBlaze Radio Network. TheBlazeRadio.com. You want to find out more, follow me on Twitter. It's @DocThompsonShow. My buddy and cohort from The Morning Blaze, Kris Cruz, as well as Kal is spinning the dials radio-style for us as well.

Last night, just hours ago, on the strip in Las Vegas, a gunman on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Hotel fired countless rounds into the crowd below, including a concert across the street. As it stands, 50 people confirmed dead. That number is likely to grow. Over 400 injured.

Just to give you the quick update. One suspect killed himself as police broke into his room. 64-year-old Stephen Paddock is his name. (cuts out)

DOC: When a man blew up the school there. Just to put it all into perspective. Prior to today, the deadliest mass shooting in America was the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. Prior to that, it was Sandy Hook.

Our friend John Di Domenico is a Trump supporter and entertainer who lives in Las Vegas. We've had him on this program and our program on the past, and has a little perspective living just, ten, 15 minutes from the Mandalay Bay.

Hey, John, how are you?

JOHN: Hey, Doc, how are you doing, man?

DOC: This is so bad, John. This is so horrible.

JOHN: This is a very small town. I moved here six years ago and was very lucky to be part of the entertainment community here. I had multiple friends at the festival. And two women, particularly. One is a singer. One is a country singer. She -- I saw that she was there. I was checking Instagram, Facebook. They were having a great time. Posting photos.

And then right before I went to bed, I checked again, and they said they were being shot at.

DOC: Wow.

JOHN: And the one woman -- I don't want to give any names for privacy. But the one -- (cuts out) was great. They're just shattered. They're horrified. This is their hometown. They went there to have a great time. And they were almost killed. So it -- it's just a horrible, horrible situation.

DOC: Well, John, let's look at a different perspective there. You're right. This is horrible. And obviously, we never want this to happen. We certainly don't want it to happen again. But let's look at some of the, albeit, small by comparison, but positive stories. The stories of self-sacrifice like that, people pushing others out of the way.

JOHN: Yeah.

DOC: Sacrificing themselves. Covering people. And ended up taking a bullet and dying themselves.

JOHN: Right.

And I just want to read you the line, what she wrote. A man that we did not know laid on top of us and covered Amy's head. He was shot from behind. The lady right next to us was grazed in the neck. So, yeah, there was a lot of heroism. We have amazing first responders here, incredible police. I also had -- you know, like I said, I had multiple friends there. And beyond the fact that it's hard to believe, yeah, a lot of people rose to the occasion. Were able to kind of be clear, move people out, get people behind the stage, get people to safety. So, yeah, there's -- in these -- in these moments, in these tragedies, people really speak out and figure out a way to focus and help others.

DOC: John, tell me about this venue. When I lived in Vegas, it was in the early '90s. The Mandalay Bay wasn't even there. It was the Hacienda back in the day. And then the strip ended up developing quite a bit after I left.

Tell me about this outdoor venue. It's diagonally across the street?

JOHN: Yeah. So Mandalay Bay is at the southern end of the Las Vegas (cuts out).

DOC: That space, it's many acres.

KRIS: Yeah, it's huge.

JOHN: It's huge.

KRIS: Like John said, you can fit the iHeartRadio concert. A lot of people do different concerts. And I actually didn't know that, that the American ninja warrior was filmed. There. That makes sense.

DOC: That makes sense.

JOHN: They fill tons of stages. And you can move around. And they have a lot of festivals. And card games. And this -- this man obviously knew this was coming to town. And he obviously asked for a room on the high floor. And then did what -- he did the unthinkable. And has shattered many, many people's lives. Killed many people.

DOC: We figured this morning, we speculated, and it made a lot of sense that he likely did this to time it when the concert was there, because he's going to have thousands and thousands of people that are a target. And that's how it seems this morning.

JOHN: Yeah.

DOC: It's interesting, John. We're looking at the pictures coming out of the Mandalay Bay this morning. And there are two windows, on the hotel, that are broken out. But it's interesting because those windows are dozens of those little squares. I don't know if that represents --

CALLER: They're full-sized windows. They're full-sized windows.

DOC: So would one of those be a room?

JOHN: Three of them would probably be a room.

DOC: So we're seeing them at kind of a point.

KRIS: It's like an X.

DOC: Yeah, it's like -- yeah, it's like that. Is on kind of like one of the points. And then eight to ten windows, kind of down the side, is another broken out window. We don't know why yet. Interesting.

JOHN: Uh-huh. Yeah, I have -- I have no idea about -- about that. I -- and this is, you know -- it would seem to me that there were -- there was another shooter. I don't want to --

DOC: Yeah, the police have not confirmed that. It could have been him. It could have been somebody else breaking out the window. It could have been anything.

JOHN: Also there's echo there. Terrible. But he was very calculating on how he did this and timed it and his angle and all those things.

DOC: So, John, I was thinking about it this morning and talking about priorities and about how some reason we don't prioritize what's important. And a lot of us don't in our own lives. It's easy to get pissed off at somebody in front of you in traffic or whatever. And you go, you know what, at least I wasn't shot up in Vegas, right? That's how it was. (cuts out)

DOC: -- melting down. I mean, this is ridiculous.

JOHN: It is. And, you know, we're -- you know, we love this -- we've all loved this country. And we're smart people. And a lot of us are from -- a lot of people who are at each other are from a lot of the same places. That have the same -- actually the same core values. When stuff like this -- you make a great point. When stuff like this happens, those other things are so trivial and actually would be so easy to come to an agreement on or get around in some way. You know what I mean? Let's work this out.

We love this country. It's an amazing place. We're living in -- you know, all -- this wonderful time as far as technology, all these things that are happening.

But to see something like this and then we're -- like you just said, a few days ago --

DOC: So stupid. You know.

JOHN: Yeah. Our lives are so short and so precious, and we're wasting time.

DOC: Screwing around with that stuff.

JOHN: Yeah.

DOC: See, John, there's no bringing back the 50 people that were killed. But still, we could come to some reasonable conversation -- or, reasonable understanding about statues, right? There's nobody dead there, right? Columbus Day being offensive to some people. Okay. We can have that discussion because nobody is dead.

JOHN: Right. Yeah. We're getting -- we're getting tied up in wasting our lives, actually.

DOC: All right.

JOHN: It's time to refocus and get back to things that are important, like human life.

DOC: Exactly. Right. That may matter, okay.

JOHN: Yeah.

DOC: John Di Domenico, buddy. Thanks so much for joining us. Okay?

JOHN: Thank you, guys. And thanks for all your prayers for Las Vegas. This is a great town. And we're going to come back. This is a great place to come and have a great time. And the police are amazing. And the first responders, like I said.

DOC: All right, John. Thanks, buddy. What I'll do is I'll tweet out a link to John's account as well so you can find him. He's a good guy.

Bill Gates ends climate fear campaign, declares AI the future ruler

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

Hesham Elsherif / Stringer | Getty Images

That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

Julia Beverly / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

Bloomberg / Contributor | Getty Images

The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

PEDRO MATTEY / Contributor | Getty Images

All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.