The 15 Most Provocative Quotes from Anthony Atamanuik, aka Donald Trump in the Trump vs. Bernie Debate

When I first saw the video of Anthony Atamanuik and James Adomian—great comedians both, and cult icons for fans of the improv scene and podcasts like Comedy Bang Bang—debating as Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders at UCB New York, I knew I had to see them live. But I didn’t know how that would happen, until they announced the Trump vs. Bernie tour. Alexandria, VA was close enough to North Carolina, so yesterday afternoon my friend Craig and I drove four hours north on Interstates 85 and 95 to the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse. To give you an idea of what we were expecting, watch the UCB video that had us dying in the first place:
Heading into the theater, we knew we could count on pitch perfect impressions. What we didn’t know was incredibly shocking and cutting Anthony Atamanuik’s satire would be. He captured more than just voice and mannerism—he also captured the hateful spirit of the candidates in question. As Trump, he had the audience gasping at several moments, and laughing nervously in spite of themselves. To top it off, he closed with one of the more stirring meta-anti-Trump arguments I’ve heard—and I’ve heard my fair share.
Olga Lexell already wrote a wonderful feature/interview about the show for Paste, which you can read here, so I’m taking a different approach. Below are the 15 most provocative quotes from Atamanuik-as-Trump. It’s worth keeping in mind that the goal here is satire, so if you read them with a sense of shock and horror, well…that’s the point. Atamanuik supports Sanders, and he’s doing his best to reveal the true meaning behind Trump’s rhetoric.
Also, PS, spoiler alert: Don’t read this if you’re going to see these guys. And you should really, really try to see these guys, if you can.
1. Opening statement, on his opponents:
“What’s really important here is we’re winning. We’re beating Ted Cruz, that slimy, Canadian weasel. And I’m suing him. I promise you that. I’m suing him. This guy is a tremendous loser and he’s a liar. He’s a real liar. I mean don’t get me started on Jeb, I’ll talk about Jeb. I mean, that guy, he’s a little tiring, you know. He’s a very tiring guy. And Carly’s out. Bye-bye Carly. Her face could not hold up to scrutiny. I love Ben Carson. He’s sleeping all the time. In fact, I don’t know if people know this, but Ben Carson’s actually been Ambien sleep-walking for five months. He doesn’t even know he’s running for president. I woke him up briefly during the debate, he said, ‘where am I?’ And I said, ‘go back to sleep.’”
2. On the Bible and Jeb:
“I’m a very good Christian, and I read the bible, I love the bible…There’s the book of Job, I mean that’s a great book. Job’s in the bible. I mean this guy, what a loser, right? He’s got warts on him, he stinks, nobody wants to go near him, everybody dies who goes near him. I mean it should be called the Book of Jeb, really. I mean it. I really do. I mean this guy, my God, he’s the Terry Schiavo of presidential candidates. I mean someone needs to put him down, his eyes are clicking back and forth. I mean, Jeb. He smells like a bag of Cheetos mixed with Sprite. It’s disgusting. And then he has the real gall to dress his testicles up with a gray wig and bring it out and say it’s his mother. It’s very offensive. It’s very offensive.”
3. On God:
“I’m the best Christian that’s ever worshipped. I mean I have a great relationship with God. He always visits me dressed in red. He’s got horns. He makes me sign a lot of contracts. We’ve done a lot of deals. We’ve done a lot of deals, God and I.”