{"id":382231,"date":"2026-07-01T15:51:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T15:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/382231\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T15:51:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T15:51:19","slug":"saturday-night-live-trump-impressionist-james-austin-johnson-heads-to-san-francisco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/382231\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Saturday Night Live&#8217; Trump impressionist James Austin Johnson heads to San Francisco"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DATEBOOK PICK<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Viewers tuning into any given cold open of the latest &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; season likely saw President Donald Trump on their screens. <\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">It wasn&#8217;t really Trump, of course. The name behind the impression is James Austin Johnson. While he&#8217;s best known for his impersonation of the 47th U.S. president, his versatility hasn&#8217;t gone unnoticed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The 36-year-old comedian stunned audiences with his vocal chops when he portrayed Andrea\u00a0Bocelli in a parody Christmas duet alongside Ariana Grande, playing Celine Dion. He&#8217;s also done voice work for the big screen, including Pouchy in &#8220;Inside Out 2&#8221; (2024).<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Johnson got his start in comedy as a teenager through stand-up, performing at open\u00a0mics in his hometown of Nashville, Tenn. But it was his impressions that made him an &#8220;SNL&#8221; staple, ever since he played former President Joe Biden in his first appearance on the show in 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">An &#8220;SNL&#8221; repertory player since 2023, Johnson is showcasing his comedy toolbox during the show&#8217;s summer break. The Ideal Man tour comes to Cobb&#8217;s Comedy Club in San Francisco on Friday-Saturday, July 10-11.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">More Information<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">James Austin Johnson: 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 10; 7 and 9:15 p.m. Saturday, July 11. $38.20. Cobb&#8217;s Comedy Club, 915 Columbus Ave., S.F. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ticketmaster.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:www.ticketmaster.com;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;www.ticketmaster.com&quot;}\" class=\"link \">www.ticketmaster.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Subscribe<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/subscription.sfchronicle.com\/checkout\/2018\/4062?siteID=SFC&amp;origin=acquisition&amp;ipid=article&amp;variant=yahoo2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:There\u2019s more to San Francisco with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25\u00a2.;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;There\u2019s more to San Francisco with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25\u00a2.&quot;}\" class=\"link \">There\u2019s more to San Francisco with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25\u00a2.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This article originally published at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfchronicle.com\/entertainment\/comedy\/article\/james-austin-johnson-cobbs-22325928.php?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=yahoo_syndication\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:\u2018Saturday Night Live&#039; Trump impressionist James Austin Johnson heads to San Francisco;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;\u2018Saturday Night Live&#039;&quot;}\" class=\"link \">\u2018Saturday Night Live&#8217; Trump impressionist James Austin Johnson heads to San Francisco<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DATEBOOK PICK Viewers tuning into any given cold open of the latest &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; season likely saw&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[154478,536,70295,20676,101,103,102,2973,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-382231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-austin-johnson","tag-donald-trump","tag-james-austin-johnson","tag-president-joe-biden","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-saturday-night-live","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}