Impressionist Shawn Farash, who has gone viral in recent years for his impersonation of former and president-elect Donald Trump, said he discovered that he did a good impersonation of Trump while working as a salesman selling DirecTV in New York.
Farash said he went to Hofstra University in Long Island and graduated with a degree in radio, but ended up taking a sales job as he found out that broadcast media had a “big time leftist” vibe.
“I went to one media company in New York City and I just didn’t like the vibe. I said I’m going to just put this on hold…I was just looking to get my foot in the door, but I just didn’t like the vibe,” Farash explained on Thursday’s edition of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
Instead of taking a job in broadcast media, Farash said he landed a delivery job at a Sherwin-Williams store before going into door-to-door sales selling DirecTV.
Farash said he discovered he could do a good impersonation of Trump in 2016 while he was bowling at an event for work.
“A guy threw a ball down the lane and it was a strike. I said, ‘That was a beautiful throw. It looked like Rosie O’Donnell. You can eat a buffet, the pins are everywhere.’ They go, that sounds like Trump. I said, ‘Oh, does it?’ So I did it the rest of the night…This was around early 2016, and I took that [impersonation] into the field,” Farash said.
Farash said the impersonation of Trump helped him sell DirecTV to customers who thought his impersonation was “hysterical.”
“I was selling and there were customers who would ask, ‘Hey, there’s an election, if I switch, am I going to still have Fox News?’ And I would look at them and I would go, ‘I would never make you watch CNN. Of course, you’re going to have Fox. We’re not going to put you on with the fake news.’ And they thought it was hysterical. So I was using it to sell,” Farash said.
After the election, Farash said he left selling DirecTV and went back to selling paint at Sherwin-Williams from 2018-2021.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Farash said he started doing videos of him impersonating Trump on TikTok, which he said went viral “immediately.”
Farash said he believes he does the “best” impersonation of the president-elect because he simply likes and relates to Trump.
“Honestly, I like the guy. I think that’s it. I really like him…He’s not perfect. There are things he did that I disagree with in some cases, but it’s okay…He grew up in Queens. I knew a lot of people from Queens and I watched him a lot. I think he’s hilarious. People are like, oh he rambles I’m like, no, he calls it the weave. I get it, I do get it because that’s the way I talk. I go from here to here to here and then you have to bring it all back,” Farash said.
Farash said he met Trump at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey in 2023 where he did the impersonation in front of a room full of people and the president-elect.
“I looked at him and I said, ‘Mr. President, you’re doing a tremendous job.’ And everyone starts laughing. And I said, ‘We’re going to help you win in a landslide – worse than Chris Christie after Taco Bell.’ So I made a poop joke to the president and he laughed. We got a smile with teeth, a handshake. And that was one of the most watched videos,” Farash said.
Most recently, Farash has gone viral for his impersonation of Trump in commercials for Tennessee retailer D.T. McCall & Sons.
Watch the full interview:
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
