August 30, 2019
Watch: Randy Rainbow Riffs on Trump's 'Chosen One' Gaffe with 'Superstar' Medley
READ TIME: 5 MIN.
Randy Rainbow's newest parody video once again features the president, this time tackling Trump's claims to be "the chosen one" with a medley that draws on selections from "Jesus Christ Superstar."
As The Wraps reports, Rainbow notes mid-song: "Cheeto Christ - Cheeto Christ! He's like if Jesus was pumpkin spiced."
Rainbow begins the tour-de-farce in his usual way, with a spoof interview in which he appears to be chatting with Trump.
"Well! It is a special day indeed," a chipper Rainbow begins, "as I am join now by The Divine Miss T, our Lord and Savior, the King of the Jews... am I leave anything out?"
Trump appears to respond with, "Brilliant, great."
"Don't push it," Rainbow ripostes. Then: "Donald Trump, you have had a busy few days. G7 meetings, ongoing trade wars with China..."
Trump seems to nod along in agreement.
"Bed bugs," Rainbow says.
"Fake news!" snaps Trump.
"Let's see," Rainbow continues, doing his trademark cat's-eye glasses. "You also sent out a controversial tweet saying that you are the 'King of Israel' and told a group of reporters that you are the" – Rainbow raises a hand to create air quotes – "'Chosen One.'"
Trump appears to nod along in agreement.
"How you doing?" Rainbow asks solicitously. "You okay?"
"The news about me is largely phony," Trump declares, as music begins.
"Mr. Not My President, you're acting quite bizarre," Rainbow serenades Trump, "ruling like a loon beind your Twitter avatar. Of all your recent antics this latest one's a pearl: Now it seems you think you're God. Okay... whatever, gurl."
As the music sweeps uptempo, Rainbow works in a jibe about Greenland – which Trump recently jokingly (or perhaps not) spoke about trying to acquire from Denmark, a remark that many derided, though Republican Senator Tom Cotton wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times suggesting it would be a clever idea.
Rainbow then suggests that the president is "dreaming of walls while the stock market falls," before suddenly transforming into Vaudevillian garb and, adopting a singing style to match, sings, "And now you're shaming the Jews."
Earlier this month, Trump claimed that American Jews who vote Democrat are "disloyal." (Unclear was whether the president meant they are "disloyal" to America or to him personally.) Trump them retweeted a post from an admirer who likened Trump to "The King of Israel" and "the second coming of God."
"Thank you to Wayne Allyn Root for the very nice words. "President Trump is the greatest President for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world, not just America, he is the best President for Israel in the history of the world...and the Jewish people in Israel love him....– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 21, 2019
Ironically, the Jewish faith does not accept Jesus as the savior of humankind; to this day, Jews await the first coming of God.
Rainbow bushes by such theological nitpicks, however, resuming his prior appearance and observing, "You say you're the chosen one, and I know what you mean."
Trump nods with enthusiasm.
"Chosen by the Russian Kremlin in 2016!" Rainbow zings. "When will this maniacal messiah complex pass?"
Rainbow cheerily skips to his next political swipes, inviting Trump to "keep selling us lies and attacking allies," before putting his finger on a more fitting sobriquet for his majesty: "Go, you King of Fake News!"
As Trump begins to rattle on about the mainstream media supposedly inventing stories about him, Rainbow flashes into a new costume, complete with a change of music as the medley shifts into a different selection from the famed musical: Dressing in an ensemble that seems to take after that in which the Virgin Mary is traditionally attired, Rainbow declares, "You're making no sense, bitch," before sarcastically agreeing with Trump's droning diatribe by saying, "Yes, everything's lies."
Then: "Close your mouth, close your mouth and delete all your socials tonight!"
The musical's most famous number, "Superstar," as a TV news anchor appears and announces, "The president has said he is the King of the Jews, the Second Coming of God, the chosen one."
Rainbow reappears, swaddled in glory and wearing another biblical costume, and raps out, "He's not really interested in belonging to mankind. When it comes to Bible study, he's way behind. He can't walk on water or give sight to the blind – but he can change a falsehood to a fact with his mind!"
Rainbow then moves on to address the hardships of being a Celestial King on Earth:
"When they crucify him in the news he start's trippin' – and he kinda speaks in tongues when his dentures start slippin'."
After a rousing chorus of "Cheeto Christ," Rainbow swing right back in with, "He prefers profanity to Biblical psalms, and he can stop a hurricane with nuclear bombs!"
Trump actually did wonder aloud why nuclear explosions could not be used to dissipate hurricanes, and to be fair it's an idea that has been proposed in the past. But the downsides of such a strategy remain the same now as they were in 1959, when a meteorologist named Jack Reed proposed the idea: As Business Insider reported in the wake of Trump's query, no single nuclear weapons exists that is powerful enough to disrupt a hurricane, which is an enormous storm system. The other problem, of course, is that the storm's winds would disperse radioactive fallout far and wide.
Rainbow proceeded from there to drop another multi-megaton one-liners, though, singing that Trump is "praised by his disciples though they've all been misled, and somehow he brought Mitch McConnell back from the dead."
That was followed, in short order, by Rainbow's joke that "he makes 25 seem like the Christmas of amendments."
The 25th Amendment to the United States Constitution outlines the procedure by which a sitting president might be stripped of power, with the vice president taking charge, should the president become unable to discharge the duties of his office.
Some proponents of the idea of invoking the 25th Amendment, among them Anthony Scaramucci, point to Trump's increasingly erratic conduct and rhetoric, implying that the president is mentally unfit and only growing more so with the passage of time. Scaramucci recently told Bill Press, a radio commentator and contributor to political news outlet The Hill, "I don't understand how elected public servants of the longest-standing Republican democracy in existing world history, a 243-year-old Republican democracy could have this sort of full-blown insanity on display and not act."
Like fallout from a nuclear attack on a hurricane, though, that idea comes with radioactive consequences: What would, in effect, be a Pence presidency.
Watch the video below.