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And n.p.r. 81 married and 90.5 w p k t w p k t h d one Norwich 89.1. 88.5 our ally Southampton at 91.3 and w n p dot org The following program was previously recorded It's 8 o'clock. Remember the gardener the character and being near Chance has been raised in isolation there's something wrong with him most of his information is coming from television he doesn't really know anything but as you ventures out into the world he is mistaken for a savant people who are so hungry for leadership for some kind of out of the box view of a chaotic world gravitate towards him it's clear at the end of the movie even though he's a complete fool he's going to become president and. In his new book critic James pano was there seemed so similar picture of Donald Trump a product of television somebody who knew the world through television who became known through television who in essence is a television character to talk more about that after the news. Live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm Janine Herbst Republicans are stepping up their fight against the impeachment inquiry of President Trump as N.P.R.'s Claudio ghazal is Reports Senator Lindsey Graham and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are pushing legislation condemning the process behind the inquiry Graham says he has more than 40 Republican co-sponsor so far his resolution would need a simple majority to pass the South Carolina lawmaker says it's part of a g.o.p. Effort to ramp up the public fight against impeachment Graham said White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is working on a communication strategy I think they're working on getting a messaging team together Graham says he wants Trump to focus on his job as president and not impeachment cloudy the sun this n.p.r. News the Capitol wildfires in northern California's wine country are forcing thousands to flee and the state's biggest utility Pacific Gas and Electric is conducting another plant power outage as a safety precaution the Kinkaid fire in Geyserville has burned some $10000.00 acres and is 0 percent contained and another rapidly advancing fire is racing toward scientifically Reda north of downtown Los Angeles the v.a. Inspector general's investigation into the office charged with protecting whistleblowers inside the Department of Veterans Affairs has instead put them at risk N.P.R.'s Quil Lawrence explains one of the trumpet ministrations Kidd accomplishments on Veterans Affairs was the office of accountability and whistleblower protection it was meant to make it safer to report waste or abuse inside v.a. And make it easier to fire bad staff V.A.'s inspector general has concluded that especially in its 1st 2 years the office failed to push out poor performing senior officials did not conduct accurate or unbiased investigations failed to protect whistleblowers and in some cases may have retaliated against the people reporting waste or harm to vet. Friends at the v.a. V.a. Officials responded that in recent months the v.a. Has moved to address many of the problems highlighted in the report Quil Lawrence n.p.r. News in Chicago classes will be canceled again tomorrow as the teachers union and the school district continue to try to work out a new contract both sides in the country's 3rd biggest school district say they made progress in talks today but disagreements remain on issues including class size and staffing 25000 members of the teachers union walked out October 17th and that has 300000 students out of the classroom a disappointing 3rd quarter profit in revenue numbers a Twitter said shares of the social media company down just over 20 percent by the close today this despite the fact that the company added more new users Twitter blames bugs in its advertising software and slower than expected demand for ads this summer Wall Street ended the day in mixed territory the Dow down 28 Nasdaq up 66 this is n.p.r. For the 2nd day in a row violent protests of rock Ethiopia with local media reports of at least 20 dead in the clashes N.P.R.'s later Peralta reports protesters are angry with the country's newly minted Nobel laureate prime minister Abi protesters are angry because they believe the government try to intimidate Jaguar Mohammed a media mogul that one of the leading activists in the country so they've taken to the streets blocked roads and in some cases the said business is on fire Jaguar was once a close ally to Prime Minister Abby Achmet but in an interview with n.p.r. He says their vision for Ethiopia has drifted apart he says the prime minister even issued a veiled threat but he is not afraid I wanted it to be known. No amount of threat would force me to leave the country the worry is that the feud between these 2 men will lead Ethiopia to a spiral of violence in a Prata n.p.r. News Nairobi. Orders to u.s. Factories for big ticket items fell in September by the largest mountain for months the Commerce Department says durable goods orders dropped 1 point one percent last month because of declining demand for cars and airplanes that's the biggest setback sense a 2.3 percent decline in May and orders tied to business investment also dropped by a half percent suggesting business owners are still wary about future economic prospects Asian markets are trading in mixed territory at this hour the Asia Dow is down a fraction crewel prices higher by the Bell a 4 tenths of a percent I'm Janine Herbst n.p.r. News in Washington support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include American Jewish World Service working together for more than 30 years to build a more just and equitable world learn more at a.j. Ws dot org and the listeners who support this n.p.r. Station. For some people the ultimate goal in life as being a kind of the president of the United States when terms like to be the president states I really don't believe I would why wouldn't you dedicate yourself to public service because I think it's a very mean life and I also see it that someone with strong views and somebody with the kind of views that are maybe a little bit unpopular which may be right but may be unpopular wouldn't necessarily have a chance of getting elected again somebody with no great brain but a big smile and that's a sad commentary for the political process television a strange way has that process has been that it's raised the processor in much I mean the Abraham Lincoln's of the world Abraham Lincoln would probably not be electable today because of television he was not a handsome man and he did not smile at all he would not be considered to be a prime candidate for the presidency and that's a shame as a country if we had one man and it's really not that big a situation you know people say well what could anybody do as president one man can turn this country around one proper president can turn this country around I firmly believe that all right that's Donald Trump I think he knew that but it's 19 eighties talking a roll of Barrett October 6th 1930 were right on the cusp actually of television and movie actor getting elected president a guy who was pretty good looking and did smile apparently Abraham Lincoln. Sure troops knew nothing about. The view but he'd seen on television so I was not like that but so we were going to have a president who was an actor and sometimes seem to be acting as president and also seemed to occasionally confusion television and movie scripts that he'd been involved with reality so Trump meanwhile is kind of saying a guy like him can never get elected president you might have been right at that moment but as James pano was a good illustrates in his new. Audience of one Donald Trump television and the fracturing of America television and media and the way in which our entertainment culture overlap with our political process was going to change over the in soon 35 years in such a way that obviously somebody like Donald Trump even the way that he describes himself could win the presidency and did so James Poniewozik is with us right now it's exciting to have you and what else do I need to say before we get going here while the church you television critic for The New York Times so. So we just listen to that clip we hear Trump especially saying that he could many of someone like him could never make it and in many ways the whole thrust of your book is asking the question Well what changed you know what changed in the in those 35 years I know you want to pick one or 2 things to get us started Sure I mean I mean I think that's exactly right how do we get there from here because it because I think he was essentially right somebody like the Donald Trump that we see today you know scowling angry provoke provoking you know probably could not have gotten elected in the t.v. Era of that time and you know a couple of things that happened of course over the course that time sort of the 2 parallel stories in the book is number one that Donald Trump made himself into a television celebrity and he is as special I think he is he is more significant to the country as kind of a 35 year t.v. Performance a t.v. Character than as you know an actual biographical person number one and number 2 television changed and the larger electronic media change and the the nutshell you know quick quick description of how it's changed is that it went from a mass media to an issue medium way went from the time when there were 3 major networks and everything on the air sort of had to be broadly you know often blandly appealing to a point when you have all sorts of media outlets that are micro targeted. Micro audiences and their raison d'être is to provide things that are not for everybody but they're very specifically for an intensely interested group and that both changes the business of television obviously but it also kind of changes the tone of the content of television so that you know it becomes and becomes a more hospitable environment for more polarizing figures so you have broad strokes I think those are the big things that changed from then to here yeah and we're going to explore all of those things if we have enough time here as we go along I want to begin though kind of where you begin which is the mis education of Donald Trump or of how did how does he. Even as a child we don't know one of the things that fascinates me about Trump is he doesn't really cite culture that much specific instances of popular culture we know I don't know his favorite Beatle isn't probably neither do you I learned more from your book about what a movie is to him or what television is to him than I've learned study him studying him pretty closely lo these last few years so it's an interesting question anyway that you explore how how did he study television what was popular culture to him as he grew up here you know I don't know if he studied television so much as he intuited it is sort of interesting that he is somebody who is both a creature of popular culture and yet has a very specific interests and and seeming blank spots but you know I think it's when you look at his early life when you look at the art of the deal for instance you know his for his 1st book he doesn't talk a lot about his childhood but one of the few memories that he relates is watching his mother who was a Scottish emigre Sit down from the television all day when he was about 7 years old and watched the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth on television and it's you know it's sort of the 1st you know it's the 1st time that we have seen. The live or almost live the coronation of a monarch and it's kind of an example of the new world that kids of his era are being introduced to you know where there is suddenly this 2nd virtual place in your living room that can you know bring you an ocean away and show you these images of grand jury and majesty and ceremony and you know he talks about how his mother was swept away by the glamour and the of the ornament of it all as opposed to his father who was much more practical and business minded it and you know describes the sort of formative experience for him in that way I think but I think in another way it was really. It was an example of how you know he was starting to realize the power of this new thing that existed in the world right you have the contrast between this and his father's real estate business while nobody's mother sits around all day entranced by the workings of a construction crane you know but television like it's match you know it's literally something almost magical and he I think decided early on that he early on in his career he toyed with the idea of going off to Hollywood and working in the entertainment business and he decided not to but he said early on I'm going to bring showbusiness into real estate and what I think that essentially meant for him was that you know having seen this you know gotten this glimpse of this magic power of showbiz glamour he knew that that courting celebrity was sort of that was a power that you could leverage into other things right so I want to stay a little bit with his the time of his childhood and yeah things that he might have been influenced by just for a nother minute or 2 show or to hear from the magical world of Disney Season one Episode 14 Davy Crocket goes to Congress I think we're hearing of 1st Parker here of Davy Crocket. Why d.g. I didn't expect you back for all we know I'll be if you're worried about it in your belly it's all they've already passed to change your mind. I'm warning you rocket going there dramatic political suicide I. Think about your kind of politics. So you're actually hearing David Crockett punch out some action at the end here and there's a way in which trump. Maybe is influenced by that idea that a good decisive thing that you could do is punch somebody out he doesn't seem to be the guy who does that but it you know eventually gets involved with the World Wrestling Federation there's ways in which. One of the things that he sees is this kind of rough and tumble version of reality yet he's at least attracted by the theater of you know you're right it's not like you know Donald Trump is you know actually going and punching out lawmakers in the halls but a lot of his rhetoric is sort of about nostalgia for a time when you know people settled things you know often violently and with their fists rise to talk about that a lot of Israel is back when we were back when we were strong and wise you know we used to rough up protesters that sort of thing you know I think that if you look at the television of his youth you can still see you know you can sort of see the mindset of the adult Donald Trump who became a political figure this notion of you know how red blooded men solve disputes this kind of fathers novus best concept of masculinity and as you say one of the programs that we know that don't trump is as a as a young boy I was fascinated by was he was he was a fan of professional wrestling professional wrestlers and he ultimately would become as a a real estate and hotel entrepreneur get drawn into the world of wrestling 1st hosting Wrestle Mania is at his properties in Atlantic City and then actually becoming a character in the world of the w w e and sparring with Vince McMahon and having scripted fights with him he has a w.b. Paula Fame member you know you could look it up and again you know this was in a way kind of training for the persona that he presented as a a political figure and leader a lot of the stuff if you go and if you pull up video of you know one of his rallies and look at it through the frame of wrestling so much of it as is Wrestle Mania like the it or you know the cheering crowd the way that the crowd will get going and he'll step away and kind of raised his arms and you know encourage the sound to build like he's a. You know like all coding literally you stick to it that you know you know and I think that a lot of sort of rudimentary theatrical training in those early years in front of the tube right and then of course those circles started to overlap even earlier with Jesse Ventura and of course I live here in Connecticut where both Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy had to defeat Linda McMahon wife events in order to become u.s. Senators so so yes we know we know that somehow rather the style the theatrical style violent but figure of wrestling begin to line up in kind of an interesting way with with American political theater. So you know but it's then so the fight the fight becomes a very interesting thing to trump and so one of the things really parts of your book The blew my mind because really I've been trying to figure out what is this guy watching some for himself on the news and people kind of talking to him through the what does he ever you know what movie ever meant anything to him so you revealed 2 things one of them was that he he thought about going to film school hard to know how seriously but not so he could become some sort of her but I mean his idols weren't Orson Welles or Stanley Kubrick right they were moved around bogles the bright business of it though the guys who ran the studios Yeah yeah Louis mayor and those types you know I think you probably couldn't imagine himself as as the the creative even at that point and it you know it's funny you hear him. Errol Morris the documentarian did an interview with him several years back where he asked him about the movie Citizen Kane and hit his Donald Trump's conclusion that he true from it was well clearly. Charles Foster Kane just needed a good one and so they made him maybe that was the best choice he did not necessarily have he had to have the ends take 7 Orson Welles' and. Another I don't know if you were. Building building up to this but another early story of one of his pop cultural fascinations was the reason that he was sent off to military school by his father as a young man was that he he discovered a collection of young downs from switch blades which he had because he and his friends were fascinated with West Side Story and again you know there's the fascination you know. What's the thing that graft and you know it is as a young boy about West Side Story wasn't you know Marie Smith a girl named Maria it was it was it was the fights you know and that that that that theater of fighting so I think that was an interesting bit and so one of the other things you said I think it's from a Michael singer profile in The New Yorker is trying but his plane and he's trying to watch something else or whatever it is always my goal which is this kind of Nora Ephron the John Travolta comedy about an angel and it's just too much talking of what he sees which is the blood sport but even that has too much plot backstory a narrative right we just want to fights and yet he has Eric Trump young Eric Trump in the plane with them and he has Eric fast forward through it so he manages to watch it in about 20 or 40 minutes by only showing the fight scenes. So you know that was you know much much later in the campaign if you're going to get it