“The President Show” is Comedy Central’s new bet that there’s a sizable American audience craving to watch a buffoonish illustration of President Donald Trump.
Certainly mere existence of the show, itself debuting in the wake of Alec Baldwin’s popular “Saturday Night Live” impersonations, has proven some sort of market for self-help comedy consumption. But the new, half-hour “President Show” is a next level of commitment to making fun of the man in the Oval Office.
After weeks of hype, the show finally premiered Thursday night. In a continuation of his live performances with the Upright Citizens Brigade, comedian Anthony Atamanuik gives audiences what is arguably the most spot-on Trump parody of the moment.
To see for yourself, catch a segment last night’s show above, where the fictional Trump rates various figures in the news as either “NICE!” or “NOT NICE!”
French politician Marine Le Pen got “NICE!”
“She’s French, she’s blonde and she hates Muslims,” explained Atamanuik’s Trump. “She’s a triple threat.”
Ivanka Trump also got “NICE!” due to her skin being “like Italian marble.” After she illicited boos while defending her father to a German audience earlier this week, however, the German people earned a solid “NOT NICE!”
“This is the worst thing the Germans have ever done,” Atamanuik said. “Ever. Ever done. Ever.”
One moment hopefully hinted at more informative segments of the show, rather than beat-by-beat jokes about the week’s news, when Atamanuik went after White House press secretary Sean Spicer as both “NOT NICE!” and “NICE!”
“He’s a muttering slobber-mouth with a taste for his own foot,” Atamanuik explained, before showing a news clip about the real Trump not firing Spicer because of the press secretary’s impressive ratings. This blending of a more nuanced recap of the week amid the easy Trump jokes could certainly be a sign of good things to come.
You can watch the full episode at Comedy Central’s website. Catch a teaser for the show, in which Atamanuik’s Trump describes how his show is actually a better version of Franklin Roosevelt’s fireside chats, below:
