Can’t decide who to vote for in this contentious presidential election year?
Just go ahead and write in this name: Jack Aiello.
He’s not old enough to vote – or to be president – since he’s only 14. But he sounds just like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.
No, really. He sounds just like them.
Jack has been working on impressions since he was a little boy.
“He’s been doing them since he was very young — family members, teachers, he even makes up his own silly voices and he’s been doing that for a very long time,” his mother, Carla Aiello, told WMAQ-TV in Chicago.
So when he got a shot at delivering a speech at his eighth-grade graduation from Thomas Middle School in Arlington Heights in Chicago’s Northwest suburbs, he knew exactly what to do.
He delivered it using the mannerisms and voices of Trump, Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Ted Cruz. He threw in President Barack Obama, too.
Jack’s eight-minute speech has gone viral, watched more than 1 million times on YouTube where it showed up last week.
Jack has been interested in politics for a while now, dad John Aiello told ABC, and has “picked up phrases and mannerisms of the candidates” as he’s watched election coverage this year.
Jack started the speech with Trump.
“We’re learning languages from Spain, from France, from Germany and China,” he said. “You know, people say I don’t like China, I love China. I mean, I love China. I mean, I have so many terrific friends in China. But I took Spanish and let me just tell you, by the way, that it was fantastic. Muy fantastico.”
As Cruz he said, “Let me start by saying this: God bless the great school of Thomas!”
As Sanders he ranted about how it’s unfair that students have to pay for cinnamon rolls in the school cafeteria.
“Why should students have to pay for their own cinnamon rolls? Doesn’t make any sense,” he railed. “What we need is a cinnamon roll revolution!”
The audience gave Jack a standing ovation as he wrapped up, still as Sanders, with this: “As far as schools go, TMS is in the top one half of one half of one percent of schools in the entire country.”
Jack hopes to meet his idol, “Saturday Night Live” alum Dana Carvey, who recently launched
a new competition showfor amateur impressionists.
“If you were to ask him what he really wants to do, he really truly does want to be president someday. He feels a great desire to be a leader,” said John Aiello. “A politician or a comedian, which the lines do sometimes blur.’