Trump tuned in to presidency
Want to understand the President? Turn on cable TV
During a small working lunch at the White House last month, the question of job security in US President Donald Trump’s tumultuous White House came up, and one of the attendees wondered whether press secretary Sean Spicer might be the first to go.
The President’s response was swift and unequivocal. “I’m not firing Sean Spicer,” he said, according to someone familiar with the encounter. “That guy gets great ratings. Everyone tunes in.”
Trump even likened Spicer’s daily news briefings to a daytime soap opera, noting proudly that his press secretary attracted nearly as many viewers.
For Trump — a reality TV star who parlayed his blustery-yet-knowing on-air persona into a winning political brand — television is often the guiding force of his day, both weapon and scalpel, megaphone and news feed.
And the President’s obsession with the tube has upended the traditional rhythms of the White House, influencing many spheres, including policy, his burgeoning relationship with Congress, and whether he taps out a late-night or early-morning tweet.
Those Trump tweet-storms, which contain some of his most controversial utterances, are usually prompted by something he has seen on television just moments before. The President, advisers said, also uses details gleaned from cable news as a starting point for policy discussions or a request for more information, and appears on TV himself when he wants to appeal directly to the public.
Some White House officials — who early on would appear on TV to emphasise points to their boss, who was likely to be watching just steps away in his residence — have started tuning into Fox News’ Fox & Friends because they know the President habitually clicks it on after waking near dawn.
But Trump’s habits have consequences far beyond being the quirky, unchanging ways of a 70-year-old man who keeps an eye on cable as he goes about his day, as his confidants describe his behaviour.
Foreign diplomats have urged their governments’ leaders to appear on television when they’re stateside as a means of making their case to Trump, and US lawmakers regard a TV appearance as nearly on par with an Oval Office meeting in terms of showcasing their standing or viewpoints to the President.
The President’s fascination with television is born of personal experience. Trump, long a fixture in the New York tabloids, did not become a household presence until 2004, when he began hosting NBC’s hit reality TV show The Apprentice. He relished the attention, boasting about and fretting over his ratings, much as he now handles political polls.
He is also a natural showman. During the campaign, he riveted viewers with his raucous rallies, where he often spoke for more than hour without any notes or teleprompters.
And in TV interviews, he sometimes offers tips on matters including lighting and chair placement, with an intuitive sense of what makes for good TV.
“He is very attuned to the fact that cable networks have 24 hours a day that they need to fill — and if you’re interesting, you are gold,” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said.
On his campaign plane, Trump watched television on full volume — usually Fox News, sometimes CNN — almost constantly, said someone who flew with him, shushing his aides whenever he himself came on the screen and listening with rapt attention. When Hillary Clinton appeared, he’d similarly quiet his team, often before pointing a finger at the TV and scolding: “She’s lying! She’s lying!”
Now that he’s in the White House, friends and aides describe a President who still consumes a steady diet of cable news. During an intimate lunch recently with a key outside ally in a small West Wing dining room, for instance, Trump repeatedly paused the conversation to make the group watch a particularly combative Spicer briefing.
“For all the talk about how the media is so tough on Trump, which they are, the most interesting thing about Trump and the media is that in the end, Trump totally manipulated the media,” said Stephen Moore, an economist for the Heritage Foundation who served as a senior adviser to the Trump campaign.
“The media is why he won — because he completely dominated the media. That’s the irony of the whole thing.”
Trump’s interest in TV has proved a welcome — and at times surprising — point of entry to the White House for lawmakers and even pundits.
Congressman Elijah Cummings once appealed to Trump directly on Morning Joe, addressing the camera to implore the President to call him so the two could chat about prescription drugs. Days later, Cummings said, the President himself responded.
“I was a little surprised that he called — I thought his secretary would call, but he actually called,” Cummings said. “But it’s the way he operates. And he does watch television and he’s very critical of television, and I thought we had a good conversation.”
Gingrich added that sometimes after an appearance on Fox & Friends, he’ll have just left the studio and not even reached his car when his cellphone will ring: the President calling to tell him, “That was good.”
Not everyone appreciates Trump’s television obsession. Rick Wilson, a veteran Republican consultant and Trump critic, said many Republicans in Congress and in establishment party circles find the President’s habits bizarre to the point of alarming, although they rarely say so publicly because they do not want to draw his wrath. “There are many conversations where it ends: ‘ But of course, God knows, he could watch Fox News tomorrow and change his whole position’,” Wilson said. “They don’t get him, because he’s a creature of television and they’re creatures of politics. They care about the details, he cares about what’s on TV.”
He is very attuned to the fact that cable networks have 24 hours a day that they need to fill — and if you’re interesting, you are gold. Newt Gingrich on Donald Trump