Howard Stern grills Las Vegas’ Donald Trump

In a high-minded chat to start the week, John Di Domenico and Howard Stern deliberated the problems with voting by mail.

“What’s this with you attacking mail-in ballots for voting?” Stern asked Monday morning during a segment on his Sirius-XM show. “You know that people have the right to vote. You want them to vote, you want the country voting. Why would you trying to block mail-in voting?”

Di Domenico, as Donald Trump, laid out his argument.

“Listen, Howard, mail-in ballots are so corrupt. They need to be outlawed. It’s massive fraud,” Di Domenico said. “You’ve got these 6-, 7-year-old kids knocking over mailboxes, stealing the ballots, giving them to the 9- and 10-year-olds, who forge them. They have very sophisticated printers, and copiers. This is a big operation, a big, big operation.”

Di Domenico-as-Trump went on, “They are selling the ballots, and they are laundering the money through the lemonade stands, and the newspaper routes. I mean, these kids are doing TikTok and WhatsApp and mail fraud. We gotta get rid of the kids. You know why? They are like the Junior Deep State.”

Stern listened to that dissertation, then casually said, “I’ll be honest with you. I never thought about the fact that young children could steal the mail-in ballots from mail boxes.”

Di Domenico’s 14-minute appearance was the culmination of several weeks of work to debut on Stern’s show. The host had unexpectedly aired a clip of Di Domenico as Trump on March 30, when the comic bragged of his “perfectly negative” COVID-19 test (two days later, the president himself recited nearly the exact same claim).

Di Domenico is a natural for Stern’s show, which has enlisted other Trump impressionists in nonscripted segments. The comedian contacted his management team at Don Buchwald & Associates. The company’s founder has repped Stern since the 1980s.

“Sometimes, the answer is right in front of you,” Di Domenico said Monday morning. “I just sent an email asking, ‘How do I get through to Stern?’ Everyone and their mother was probably using this email, but we made it to Howard.”

Di Domenico typically works best when playing against an audience, or a staged interview, which wasn’t possible as Stern is still recording while quarantined in his home.

“We walked through the entire process, about how I should interact with Howard, and it was very helpful,” Di Domenico said. “I probably should have been more aggreessive — but it’s Howard Stern, and it’s a little nerve-racking. I couldn’t tell if I was killing or bombing.”

Stern seemed impressed. At the end of the lengthy segment, he goaded Di Domenico into telling him who was his favorite comedian, “Isn’t there some guy named John that you really like?”

Di Domenico, still in character, said, “That guy John Di Domenico, and he’s been riding my coattails since 2004. Can you believe this guy? I’m 6-3 and this guy’s 5-2. It’s really sad.”

As Di Domenico signed off, sidekick Robin Quivers said, “One thing we didn’t do was congratulate him on the wall he built outside the White House.”

“He didn’t have any material for that,” Stern said. “Next time.”

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. His PodKats podcast can be found at reviewjournal.com/podcasts. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on Twitter, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.