“SNL”'s James Austin Johnson reprises Trump impression to react to guilty verdict in hush-money case

One can only imagine what the "Saturday Night Live" cold open would have looked like this week.

Former President Donald Trump has been found guilty on 34 felony counts in a New York hush-money case, and Saturday Night Live's James Austin Johnson is taking the opportunity to revive his impression of the erstwhile Apprentice host.

Johnson, who gained notoriety online for his impeccable Trump impression before joining SNL in 2021, posted an Instagram video Thursday impersonating the former POTUS, meanderingly ranting about Bucca di Beppo and the cost of pasta carbonara.

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"When you go to a Bucca di Beppo, there's so many wonderful things that are on walls and that there are on the table, frankly, if you look at the pope room, there's a big head of the pope, and you should be able to play with it, I think, like an action figure or something," Johnson said in an eerie recreation of Trump's voice. "You know when you go to a collectible store and they have so much behind glass, you can't look at any of it? The last time I checked, Buca di Beppo was not a collectible store, so we would like to be able to take the framed photographs down from the men's room at Buca di Beppo."

Johnson eventually tied his loose ramble back into the Trump news of the day. "And instead what you have is a very disgraceful judge who has said that you're not allowed to do that when in fact you should be allowed to do that because they’re fun pictures," he said before pivoting to a barely connected tangent. "And the carbonara's very expensive. And I think carbonara — what is that, like four, five ingredients? Peas, it's bacon, you know, they give it a different name, Italian name, but it's bacon. And I think some cheese, maybe a couple eggs. And it sounds like breakfast but it's a very yummy pasta. But they charge you so much."

Based on the former president's tendency to criticize and rant about unusual topics, it wouldn't be entirely surprising to hear the real Trump take aim at a similar subject, even in light of more pressing issues.

On Thursday afternoon, a Manhattan jury convicted Trump on all 34 felony charges of falsifying documents in the high-profile case wherein his former lawyer Michael Cohen paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about a sexual encounter. Trump had pleaded not guilty. When he's sentenced on July 11, his penalty could range from a fine to a four-year prison sentence.

"This was a disgrace," Trump told reporters after the verdict. "This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt."

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Trump was also accused Thursday of using the N-word to refer a Black finalist during production of The Apprentice two decades ago. The show's former producer Bill Pruitt said that as Trump deliberated with the showrunner and a judge about who should win the season, Trump asked, "Yeah, but, I mean, would America buy a n— winning?"

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump 2024 campaign, disputed all the incidents outlined in Pruitt's essay, telling Slate, "This is a completely fabricated and bulls--- story that was already peddled in 2016."

Watch Johnson's Instagram video above.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.