The Daily Beast Podcast - The Real Reason Trump Runs America Like a TV Show

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to unpack the one thing that drives Donald Trump more than policy, ideology, or even power: television. From The Apprentice to Fox News, Trump has always understood that fame is a currency, and the White House is just the ultimate reality show set. Wolff details how Trump doesn’t read briefings, rarely listens, and instead crafts his world based on ratings, Nielsen scores, and cable news cues. The former president treats lawyers like scripted TV characters, his cabinet as central casting, and the nation as an audience to captivate. From Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch to Sean Hannity and Bill Shine, Trump has manipulated media insiders to shape both his narrative and his presidency. This episode reveals why politics, for Trump, has never been about governance—it’s about performance, spectacle, and keeping the cameras rolling. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You said, really, the presidency is a spin-off of the apprentice. And I thought, what a great way to look at it and try and understand what he's doing. What does he see himself as? Does he see himself as a politician? Does he see himself as a historical figure? Does he see himself as a dictator? No, he sees himself as a star. Television saves Donald Trump and reinvents Donald Trump.

Michael. Joanna. So we have something slightly different today, which is we're going to do a theme. Okay. Okay. And our theme is something. I know the theme. You know the theme, but I'm letting.

You're not springing it on me. Okay. Well, I'm telling the viewers the theme because. Unless you spring. an entirely different theme on me. Well, I could do. I should have done that just to surprise you. I mean, one of the ways that we try and cover things differently from the way that politics is normally covered is because we see Trump as a media creation and a master manipulator,

a genius manipulator of television. And what we wanted to do is talk about his operating system, which is television. Yes. And not only, not only, not only a master manipulator, or maybe this is saying the same thing, he's a performer. He's a performer. And even to understand him, it's really more helpful to think of him in terms of being an actor than in terms of being a politician. I mean, in his courtship of the audience, in his own egotomania, in his design. desire for attention. And I always come back to the baseline that first interview I did with Trump in the spring of 2016,

when it still seemed far-fetched that he would become the president of the United States. And I said, why are you doing this? And he said, without missing a beat, and as though this was a perfectly, a perfectly nor. goal, he said, to become the most famous man in the world. So I think that is always the point of departure and his understanding, accurate understanding of the chief mechanism of fame is television and the television audience. Well, and you came up with a brilliant line as we were discussing how we were going to approach this subject this morning. And this was before, I believe, you'd had any coffee or indeed possibly breakfast, you said really the presidency is a spin-off of the apprentice.

And I thought, what a great way to look at it and try and understand what he's doing. And the fact that his policy comes from television, he's just watching himself on television all day and then making up policy on the hoof in terms of what keeps the audience engage. It's like cliffhanger after cliffhanger. And curiously, his chief source of communication is with the television itself. So in 2017, when the first Trump administration began, and that was an interesting moment unlike this term, because he went in with a whole group of people who didn't really know him.

I mean, fundamentally, he had only two political friends in life, and that was Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, who he shortly fell out with. But he didn't know anybody else. He once said to me that he had spent at this point in his life, he was 70 years old. He had only ever spent 17 days. I don't know how he knew this and given him. and Trump, I'm sure it was a made-up number, but he did say, I've only spent 17 days in Washington. And so the people around him didn't know what to make of him, so it was a learning process. And I was on site then, so talking to all of these people. And their observations were, as the weeks went on, is that it was a problem. I mean, the presidency is among the most information intensive jobs on earth. And that was a problem because he didn't read anything, nothing, literally zero.

So all those beautiful briefings, people spend hours preparing, none of them got ready. Right, and he would wave them away. He had a gesture. Wave, wave it away. And they thought, okay, well, let's deliver it in one page. No, too much. let's deliver it in a paragraph too much. He didn't want it. I'm sympathetic to that. But then the other problem, compounding this one,

is that while he didn't read, he didn't listen either. So there was fundamentally, and the people around him learning this on a real-time basis, there was just no way to get him information until they figured out that the way to get him in,

information and in effective way was through the television. Okay, Michael, Michael, hold that thought, hold that thought because I've just realized for new people joining this podcast, they may not understand what you mean when you say you were on site. So I'm just reminding people that I'm the chief content officer of the Daily Beast and you have written four books on Donald Trump since he became president. And your first one, Farron Fury, was written after you spent seven. months in the White House. You joined them at the beginning and had a front row seat to the madness. Okay. Please continue. Please continue if you can remember where we were. Yeah. So it was this.

You couldn't, he didn't read, he didn't listen, but you could talk to him through the television. And at that moment, that became an interesting process that everybody had to basically have a relationship with the people at Fox News. And the people, if you were, Fox News would then echo what the White House wanted them to say so that Trump would hear this, and he would listen and appreciate and understand because it was on television. So there's this, you know, a circle, a very closed circle was being created. He was running a White House that was largely a as a reality

television show. And the television itself was supplying him with much of the script for this show. And is it, I mean, many people have speculated that the reason that he doesn't read is because

he's dyslexic. Have we discovered any evidence of that? Or does he just prefer television as a medium. I mean, why doesn't he read briefings? Well, I don't know, probably, because, I mean, there was always a discussion in the White House. Was he dyslexic? Was he semi-literate? I mean, no one really knew this. Now, a curious, curious thing is so Roger Ailes, who founded Fox News and was its chairman for 20 years, the person who created. Fox News, and in his own way, the person who certainly contributed mightily to the creation of

Donald Trump and who was a very close friend of Trump's. Having said that, you know, I was also friendly with Ailes, and as it became more and more likely that Trump would be president, and Ailes was himself more and more aghast. But he once described Trump to me as that kid whose parents never pulled him away from the television. So he grew up just glued to the television at all time. Not doing anything else, not paying attention to his schoolwork, not doing his homework, not really having friends,

just glued to the television. It reminds me a little bit of those. When I was growing up, there was a film called L'Enfant Sauvage, the savage child about a French child who'd grown up in a forest in the south of France. And he was feral. He was completely feral. And this reminds me of the idea

that you can be feral in a culture like ours where all you watch is television. I mean, it effectively becomes your parent, it becomes your entertainment center, it becomes your friend and you have an extension of it. I will tell you, I was watching the series. I binge watched the series of The Pit, which is a wonderful show on HBO about being in an ER, an enormous urgency. And I came in and I thought, our newsroom needs to be more like the pit, not with people coming in with limbs hanging off, but just the speed and energy that the pit has.

You feel like newsrooms should have that. All right, I've digressed. But you get my point. I don't exactly get your point, but that's okay. I think it's about the influence of television and how it embeds itself and certain narratives embed themselves and the structure of good television shows embed themselves. I see, but you did have to clarify that point. Okay, sorry.

All right. I think listeners know what I'm talking about. There is this other aspect of Trump. It's not only television, but he's, he, he, he, He really is, and his personality, really exists in old-fashioned television. So it's really a three-network world. And it's a world in which those shows from that time still speak most clearly to him. You know, during his trial in New York, where he was convicted, by the way, we forget this.

just faded away somehow. He's 34 convicted on 34 felony accounts, but pay no mind to that. But during that trial and he was in the breakout room, I mean, he's always upbraiding his lawyers, yelling at them, telling them how to do their jobs. Let's just remind ourselves who his lawyers were. Todd Blanche, right? Wasn't he one of the lawyers? Exactly. Now number two at the Justice Department. Alina Haber, who's just been tossed as U.S. attorney from New Jersey.

Right. And then that other guy who was, who now is name, I can't. Emil, Emil Beauvais. Oh, thank you so much. And I think Lindsay Halligan, wasn't Lindsay Halligan hanging around? She was so not taken seriously that she was not even in there. So the, idea that she was his personal lawyer is really not exactly true. Okay, well, anyway, she just got tossed out of, uh, out of Virginia and Emil Beauvais is number three of the Justice Department, I believe. No, no, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's now a federal judge. Oh, he's a federal judge. Yes. Okay. Good for a meal. Good for a meal. Um, so at any rate, um, at, at a moment, a, um, uh, you know, a difficult moment in the trial when the lawyers weren't doing anything right.

Trump lined them up. And then, and he said, he said, kind of leaning in and with that kind of, he has this real kind of mean. I mean, it's scary. And he said, have you ever heard of a man by the name of Perry Mason? Now, for several generations of people who may be listening to this podcast, Perry Mason, was a hit show in the late 1950s, up through the mid-60s, a lawyer, a television lawyer,

who won every case. And Trump would, when went on with this, do you know what Perry would do? Tell me, what would Perry do? And these lawyers are, you know, I mean, all of them, I wouldn't say they're, A plus lawyers, but sort of, you know, B lawyers who have long careers are kind of quaking in their boots. What would Perry do? But again, this is pure television, and he saw his lawyers as they, you know,

the truth about lawyers are. When lawyers are in court, they're, you know, they're, they're not that articulate. They're kind of, they kind of stumble around. They're kind of normal people. Whereas television lawyers are, of course, because someone has written their script, the most articulate people on Earth. And that's what Trump wanted. He wanted television lawyers. Yeah. Because his entire reference, everything is about television. And let's just go back to the baseline here, the baseline of Donald Trump, is that he was the star of a reality television show, top rated.

reality television show for 14 years. He understood the craft of being a television performer. He wants Atticus. No, he doesn't want Atticus Finch. That's a literary character. What he wants is a... I thought he wanted Atticus Finch from the movie. Possibly, but he even was he, I mean, he wants Perry Mason. He wants the guy who goes in and wins every case. You know, and this is out of, I mean, he, he wants, he wants Roy Cohn, who he elevated to the guy who has won every case. But, but it always is. He sees this just in terms of performance. Well, he's always referencing Johnny Carson, too, and I think, gosh, even half his viewers can't remember Johnny Carson at this point. But it's as if television stopped for him when Johnny Carson was on. And then, of course, it started again when he went on

television as the anchor of or the host of or the star, more importantly, of the apprentice. Right. And also, you know, cable, I think, started to speak to him in a fairly precise way. I mean, first thing, he was always on Fox, always a call into Fox. a, you know, a kind of recurring character in Fox News. But also the idea of cable, remember cable is much more, is much more come as you are than network television was. Well, you can freestyle on cable in a way you can't with network television, and he's good at that. Right, not as much on cable as you can freestyle in, on podcasts and you do.

YouTube, but it's all a progression. And he understood that progression. So it was the more he could be the more he could be Donald Trump, the more that was effective in a cable sense. Well, and he also had, I think it's worth pointing out, he had Roger Ailes, and then he also had Jeff Zucker, who was head of CNN, who also gave him an incredible plan. for. Right. Well, actually, actually, um, uh,

Jeff Zucker was the head of NBC. Um, so that was the pivotal moment. Okay. But then he, but Jeff Zucker then continued to CNN where they are, they were, but go,

but go back because I think this is, this is, this is important here. So Jeff Zucker is the NB, uh, head of NBC. Jeff Zucker, um, green lights, the apprentice. Um,

so they are in business. together. And they become very good friends. Actually, this is something that is sort of, sort of washed out of the Trump story, that Jeff Zucker and his wife and Trump and Melania were a kind of social for some. They were, you know, I mean, Trump was, Zucker was the network executive, Trump was the network star. What, that's just a, you know, the normal relationship, right. The network, their head of the network sucks up to their main star. And then curiously, I mean, that would break down because Jeff Zucker then went to CNN

and Trump became the antagonist to CNN. But when early in my discussions with Trump, And Trump, part of my attraction to Trump or part of his identification of me is that I wrote a column about the media for New York Magazine and then Vanity Fair. So there was a thing. This was one of his central topics. I remember that first time I interviewed Trump in his political life, which was in the spring. of 2016, part of what he wanted to talk about is how he knew all of the moguls. Sumner Redstone, loves Sumner Redstone, Rupert Murdoch, and I was Murdoch's biographer.

Bob Iger at Disney, he knew everybody and was incredibly proud of this. So we in this, we would have these discussions about these media people, but one of the things that he was focused on is this claim of his that he got Jeff Zucker his job at CNN. And he, I mean, this is not true, by the way, but nevertheless, he had a sequence. I met so-and-so at a dinner party. I sat next to him, and he didn't, he and he would, they were looking for a new, a new CNN chief. I suggested Jeff Zuck. He said, no, we don't want sucker. I said, you've got to rethink this.

He had a whole kind of thing in which he positioned himself as the central broker in the relationship between CNN and Jeff Zucker. As the Kingmaker. Yes. And which led to this idea that Jeff Zucker had betrayed him. Because when Jeff Zucker, Jeff Zucker at, Jeff Zucker at, CNN. They, I mean, Trump became, became, um, it became a, certainly a useful foil for their ratings. They became, they became effectively an anti-Trump channel. So, which, and then Trump, of course,

may turn CNN into a character in the White House reality show, constantly calling out CNN and reporters, constantly criticizing Jeff Zucker. Again, if Trump was CNN's foil, CNN became his foil. But the issue here is not politics. It's television. It's television. And I think what's so interesting about this is how difficult it is for institutions to fight back against that performance power.

it's hard for them. It's a theatrical performance. It bears almost no relationship to the truth and what's actually going on. And America's institutions have been used to, you know, existing in a real world as opposed to a pretend world of television. There are two parallel worlds here. Right. And, you know, politics was not television. yes, politicians had to figure out how to use television, and have to manage television.

And in fact, it was deadly television because you had C-SPAN. And the minute you saw a politician, I mean, you know, nobody was watching C-SPAN. It was only other politicians watching C-SPAN. Well, that was, I mean, C-SPAN over there, but politicians, I mean, that sort of misstates it, because, you know, politicians have used television on a, I mean, since, since JFK, if you couldn't use television, you were going to be a significantly less successful politician. Of course. But no one had figured out how to do it like he did. No one has figured out the more fundamental thing. No politician would think that politics was television. Exactly. That's what I'm trying to say. They had a symbiotic

relationships, but these were entirely different things and had different functions. Right. Trump just got got rid of that. I mean, it is why now Washington and the entire governmental and political process seems tangential to Trump himself. Because he doesn't really see that as certainly is not top of mind. It's not even necessarily germane to what he is trying to do, to the Trump White House and to Donald Trump. He is looking at somewhere else. That's why he's so confusing to so many people in politics, in Washington, especially the Democrats. I mean, the Republicans, the Republicans mimicking Trump have all become, or many of them have become mini Trump performers.

But the Democrats still regard politics as politics. the serious and honorable profession, the serious business of serious men. And so, which puts them at a profound disadvantage. Yeah, that's what I mean, that institutions have struggled to figure out how to take on this theatrical aspect of politics because it's untethered to what's actually going on. And also it's very clear that he makes policy up as he's going along, depending on who's responding to what on what channel. So we've talked about this before, and I find it fascinating,

that we are pretty confident that he goes to sleep with the television on, and he wakes up with the television on. I can't even imagine him on his own. Does he have any moments when he's actually on his own, or is that always the television on? The television is on all of the time. I mean, there is, there are very, very few moments in the car when he's doing a rally and a public appearance. But those are pretty

much, I think, the only times that the television is not on. And of course, he is on truth socially, has his own social media platform, which he started after he got kicked off of Twitter. But it's largely to throw flames there which get picked up by television. Yeah, and while he's, why he's doing posts, he's watching television. And often that's a direct line. What he sees on television then immediately becomes the subject of a post. And you also wrote in one of your books, The Siege, I think, the second of your books, that he was obsessed or remains obsessed, I guess,

with the Nielsen ratings. Yeah, all ratings. I mean, you know, all ratings, everything is made. measured in ratings. Actually, my invitation to have dinner with Trump and his wife came because someone told, some one of his aides told him that I was writing another book. And this was told like, oh, this is a problem. But Trump said, said, oh, that guy gets ratings.

Let's see him. And then I immediately got an invitation. So it's always, yes, that. is the thing. It is, you know, his, his measure is always a popular audience measure. And it's not, you know, I mean, yes, politicians have responded to audiences, but, you know, that is still a relationship in which, you know, we're telling you what's good for you. Instead of, we're telling you what you want to hear. We're telling you what moves you. When you go to a Trump rally, it is, it's actually, I mean, he's kind of like a, like a comedian working.

He just, he just throws out stuff, throws it out, throws it out. And you can see him measuring the response. And when he really gets the response he likes, he just repeats it and repeats it and repeats. Right. It's like a Catskill comedian or a Vorderville act. He's just trying. He's just trying material. He's, you know, again, the performer, the performer, their performer.

You can't see this. To judge him as a politician is you're not going to get it. You're not going to understand what's going on here. To judge him as a performer who needs to hold the attention of his audience. Now, that means he can reject a part of the audience, which he doesn't, you know, the political, the traditional political thing is that you're appealing to such a wide audience that you're kind of bland. And you want, you want, you're willing to take a, I don't know, you know, a, you know, a 20% level of interest among 60% of the people, something. Where, whereas Trump, and this is much more akin to

targeted, modern targeted media, you know, wants 60% of the attention of 40% of the audience. I mean, it's not, he's smart. He has done this before. It's reality television. It's reality television. So let's talk about his special relationship with Fox News. I mean, you mentioned Roger Ailes. You've also mentioned in the past that it was Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, his dream to make an American president and his tragedy or his nightmare that the American president he helped make was Donald Trump? There's a confluence of circumstances and these are somewhat circumstances created by by Rupert Murdoch to his disadvantage. But they are fundamental to what happened to

to the nature of the Trump presidency and how the Trump presidency came about. And it goes like this. Roger Ailes controlled Fox News, absolutely 100%. And he controlled, largely controlled, the conservative movement. It was Roger Ailes'. The Republican Party was Roger Ailes' party. in July of 2016, Roger Ailes is forced out of Fox News,

and he's forced out because of a series of complaints by a series of women at the networks, including Megan Kelly. I mean, Roger Ailes is a pig, and this catches up with him. It catches up with him partly because he's also alienated Rupert Murdoch's sons, ridiculed them, made fun of them, all kinds of, and they set out to get rid of him, which they did while Rupert Murdoch had his eye off the ball, was on his honeymoon with Jerry Hall, his then third wife. who has already, who will depart the scene. Fourth wife.

Jerry Hall, fourth wife, yes. Isn't he on his fifth wife now? No, she was the fourth wife, yes. At any rate, he has his eye off the ball. The son's plot against Roger Ailes. Roger Ailes is out. Rupert can't do anything about. this and Fox News is then without a leader, kind of rudderless. At that point in time,

what they start to see at Fox News is that the ratings, and I believe, and certainly that this was Roger Ailes' view, that he would have done anything to have blocked a Donald Trump presidency. I mean, he and Trump were friends, but Roger considered Trump to be a moron. I mean, a performer. It's, you know, the idea, you know, curiously, Roger was still a guy who saw politics as politics. It was, I mean, he kind of got the relationship, you know, he was the next step in the relationship between politics and television, but he still saw politics as the business. of politicians. Trump is the next stage in this, and he sees politics as the business of performers. But at any rate, at Fox, Fox without a leader, starts to see that their ratings are really all about Donald Trump.

You know, it's a kind of profound understanding at a cable outlet that is entirely led by ratings. Therefore, suddenly, their boss becomes not Roger Ailes, who's gone, certainly not the Murdox who claim to have taken over, but really don't know that much about television. Their boss, their North Star, and their boss becomes Donald Trump because he gets the ratings. Right. And he starts to dictate. And then when he wins, oh my God, you know, then there is no doubt what's going on. He is the programmer. And in fact, he hires.

He will hire one of the guys who ran Fox News, guy by the name Bill Shine. So the Trump White House had a direct. line to the control room at Fox News. I mean, it's probably also worth pointing out that at the same time, there's a change in prime time anchors at Fox News because Bill O'Reilly has been me-toed out of there. Megan Kelly, who is part of the team of women along with Gretchen Carlson, who gets rid of Roger Ailes, she then leaves. Right, and that was in Megan Kelly, who is now completely in the true.

Trump camp, but at that point in time was actually a Trump antagonist. Right. Remember the debate. Remember the debate where they got into it and he said, you're all when you've got blood coming out of wherever. I mean, they were in full-on antagonism. So what happens? And then one of the people at Fox who understands this most astutely, there are two people,

I mean, Tucker Carlson, who then shifts, my. from his kind of country club Republican persona, which is why Rupert Murdoch gives him a prime time job, because he's perceived as a less of a doctrinaire right winger. But he clearly sees the writing on the wall. But the person who most sees it is Sean Hannity. And Sean Hannity, who was then the number three. in the prime time lineup, who is now the number one in the prime time lineup, becomes just signs up to Donald Trump. As a matter of fact, there was a time, Roger Ailes' funeral, which I went to on Sean Hannity's plane, and Sean Hannity at that time, with Roger out, the Murdox taking over, felt he would be kicked out of the network,

And he said he was just hanging on to support Donald Trump. And in fact, he's gone on to be their biggest star. And then he's gone on to be their biggest star, but also went on to be effectively Trump's central advisor. Right. So in the history of television and its relationship to the presidency, in the history of media in its relationship to the presidency, never has a media person operating in the media with a job in the media been so close to a president of the United States.

And it goes, I mean, it goes back and forth. I mean, Hannity is one of the few people who actually can call up Trump and get him to listen for, well, a minimal amount of time, but at least for some moments. then when Hannity, if he really wants to talk to Trump, you just make a show that is specifically directed to the audience of one. But again, one of those unwritten stories of the Trump political career is how important Sean Hannity is to it. And has he ever offered Sean Hannity a cabinet position? I mean, I'm sure Sean Hannity probably couldn't afford to go. I know he's got to run his plane. Yeah, well, I think at this point, Sean Hannity is often, people say, one of the, one of the richest people in television. And yes, I mean, Sean Hannity could have had

any, any, any, any position in the, in the, in the White House without, without, without question. I mean, you know, I mean, Pete Hakesh is, I mean, Sean Hannity could have been the, the secretary of defense in a, in a, in the blink of an eye. But, but, but he's, much more influential and much more important in the job that he holds. Let's take a commercial break. And I'm here with Michael Wolfe scrambling around inside Trump's head. If you look at this through the lens of Donald Trump's experience with television, you understand why he is focused on the central casting of the cabinet. So you have Pete Hexleth, who were always joking, was the co-host of a weekend show on Fox News, but nevertheless is now, you know, running the largest

defense department in the world. To say the very least. Yeah, to say the very least. I mean, it's just, but you think of all of them sitting around the table and the central casting nature of several of them, Pam Bonding. Well, I mean, that's always been a thing. He, yes, get them, get him, get him, he looks the part. do you look the part do you not look the part

right yeah no I mean obviously a casting from all from a casting point of view and you can see you know Christy nome head of Homeland Security who we nicknamed Ice Barbie and who just wears different costume changes according to what she's doing

she's on the border she's on a horse with a big cowboy hat on she's in town she's wearing a flat jacket and she's holding a machine gun I mean No, and the Trump women look like Fox women. I mean, you know, there was a very, there's a very precise correlation there. Well, and Kimberly Gilfoyle, unfathomably married to Gavin News when he was mayor of San Francisco at one point, was on Fox News. And when she was a liberal. Yeah, and when she was a liberal and then goes to Fox News and then goes to Don Trump Jr.

and has now been dispatched as a compensation prize to Greece, where she's the ambassador. Just to note, because it would be unfair, it seems not to note this, that Kimberly Guilfoyle was fired from Fox and is one of the few women, maybe, the only women caught up in Me Too. Right, right, absolutely, for harassing her makeup artists, I think. Yes, and... and sharing dick picks and the like. Yeah.

I think her makeup artist got his revenge, though, or her revenge with those huge eyebrows and crazy lips and hair extensions. Anyway, we digress. So, and then Tucker Carlson gets bumped off Fox News after the Dominion legal battle, where Fox News has criticized the Dominion voting machines and said they were fake and that the election was stolen. So at the risk of going on too long in the minutia of Fox News, there is that second point. So after Trump, Trump is defeated in 2020.

And part of the fallout of that is Trump insisting, that the election was rigged and it's a conspiracy, a line that Fox takes up because it's the Trump line. Well, Fox then gets sued for that. That will go on to cost them a billion dollars. But it will also incur the rage of Rupert Murdoch, who has always hated Donald Trump. Rupert Murdoch is a man who sees politics, no matter that he's a conservative, as the business of serious men. And Donald Trump, he does not believe to be a serious man, to say the very least. And in fact, Rupert Murdoch, after 2020, after January 6th, takes it upon himself, makes it his responsibility to make sure Donald Trump will not be, that Donald Trump will no longer have a political career, no longer have a hope of a political career. and Rupert Murdoch and Fox News basically invent a man by the name of Ron DeSantis. He is going to be the Republican Hope and the Trump slayer.

And he's governor of Florida. Fox, a Fox by Rupert Murdoch's dictate Ron DeSantis is to be given airtime. is to be kept off the Fox air. So part of the campaign of the 2024 campaign, you can see as a battle between Donald Trump and Fox News. And it turns out that Fox News needs Donald Trump more than Donald Trump needed Fox News. But Michael, what was that period like when Trump was, in de facto the wilderness, and he didn't have an audience,

and he'd basically been banned from Fox News. Was that when he was sitting at Mara Lago basically calculating his comeback? Yeah, I'm not sure that he, I mean, calculation is not a word that I would associate with Donald Trump. I think he decided, yeah, I mean, he decided that he was going to run for president again. I don't think that that was necessarily a fait accompli. And he was also battling lots of legal issues.

Well, I mean, the legal issues finally were what propelled him to wage his 2024 campaign. I mean, they're going to come after me, so I have to come after them. What's the best way to come after them on the, you know, you know, on the basis of running for president, everything. Whatever they say about me is political and it gives me a platform to run on. So, and that became a powerful platform, and it became the platform that he would, that he would certainly vanquish Ron DeSantis and Fox News would be stuck with him, as they are now.

And of course, Ron DeSantis was a particularly, bad performer. I mean, he actually made some interesting decisions during COVID in Florida. He kept Florida open. He kept the economy going. But he was a terrible performer. Well, against, I mean, even, I mean, the Trump people at that time would would would just shake their heads. I mean, a lot of them actually had worked for Ron DeSantis and the idea that the, you know, the straight up battle between Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump was at best for DeSantis, truly a fool's errand. And it was. I mean, he destroyed, he destroyed him within a couple of months.

Ron DeSantis was a shell of a, of a shell of a human being, really. So what does Rupert Murdoch make of all this now? I mean, I think he's on his fifth bride now. Yeah, well, I mean, so much has happened to Rupert Murdoch that I think is, you know, semi-tragic. I mean, he's he has billions and billions and billions of dollars, but everything that he wanted, you know, the love of his family and his family doesn't speak to, they don't speak to each other. And his forever empire, which has been largely dismantled. And Donald Trump being president, it's a, it's a gloomy world for rich Rupert Murdoch. And Donald Trump is suing him, by the way.

Right, with the revealing the birthday letters in the Wall Street Journal. But it's also a gloomy world for the rest of us, that largely Fox News is one of the huge contributors to Donald Trump's success. I mean, Donald Trump took over Fox News. And that was directly related. So in the historical hinge, Roger Ailes pushed out of Fox News because he's a sexual abuser, paves the way for Donald Trump to Donald Trump presidency. Another sexual abuser. So be careful what you wish for that comes under.

That is a pretty good through line of Donald Trump and television. Well, let's, there's a, there's a central character here that we have to, we have to address, which is Mark Burnett. Right. Who is the producer of the apprentice? We can put, we can put this on Roger Ailes's head or on Rupert Murdoch's head for dismissing Roger Ailes. but it really is on Mark Burnett's head. So let's understand this. Television saves Donald Trump and reinvents Donald Trump. Donald Trump is washed up.

He is bankrupt. He has no money. He has no, he's a kind of in media circles and certainly in New York circles. He's a joke. that Trump, whatever Trump was as a character in New York has passed. He's too old. He's, you know, he's done it too many times. Everybody knows the Trump tricks.

Finished. Mark Burnett is a television producer, a producer of one of the early producers, one of the monumentally successful producers of reality. television. Mark Burnett's first item, I'm not sure if it's his first, but certainly his major hit is Survivor. So, and in the early 2000s, he's looking around for a new project, and he has a proposal to do a project about a businessman, a businessman who will

who will and they'll set up a contest of who can of who which contestant can be a better business person is basically the setup here

and they go from they they look for established business people to be the host of this show and And a whole set of people on this list turn Burnett down. It's cheesy.

It's, you know, it's not respectable. Well, also, if you're a real businessman, you don't really have time to do something like that. Yeah. For all of the obvious reasons. And then they get to Donald Trump. And Donald Trump agrees to do this. And it's interesting to have disc... to talk to the people who were there

because they were all thought, this is not going to work. This is a bad, you know, he's not, he's not a guy who spends the, sends the right message. Nobody's going to think he's a success. This bankrupt is a successful business person. But, you know, it's television.

And in fact, it works fabulously. Fabulously well, fabulously well. I mean, his phrase that comes at the end of the show, you're fired when he gets rid of a contestant on every episode, leaps into the language. But so, but he is recreated for this show. I mean, even, you know, this is filmed at Trump Tower, but they go to Trump Tower and they thought, oh, my God, this place is a, this, this is, this is, this is a dive. It hasn't been redecorated in years. It's a shit hole. They, they, they outfit it.

Trump on the set, they can't get him to say the lines because he can't read them. So what they have to do is just run the tape constantly, constantly, so that they can edit this down into make him to what he is. The real Donald Trump is just off the wall saying all kinds of crazy. shit. Stuff that you could, you would never, never air.

Never run on national television. No, it doesn't make any sense. It's incoherent. But because of the magic of editing, they can make Trump look like Trump. Or make him

look like the Trump they want him to look like. Right, like an effective businessman. Like an actual businessman. And so he becomes, he may be washed up in New York. but he becomes to so much of the rest of the country, of the reality television watching rest of the country, he becomes America's businessman, which is completely untrue, but completely in this inverse world of reality television, true.

And of course, we recognize the tropes of The Apprentice now, when he has those press conferences with his cabinet all around the table. And you're almost expecting at the end of every press conference for him to turn and point at someone and say, you're fired. I mean, we're all sitting waiting for the first cabinet member to be fired. No, and it is, you know. And so remember, most politicians, they are lawyers, they are bureaucrats, their main, interest, certainly in their main activity, is policy. That's what you do.

Right. And Donald Trump has never met a policy in his life. They have no experience whatsoever with media and television. They have to learn. Some of them learn it along the way. Some of them more successfully. But Donald Trump is the star of a reality television. show, a top-rated reality television show for 14 years. So this is the kind of experience that no one in politics has ever had. And it may be the most valuable experience anybody in

politics could have. And a word from our sponsors. And Michael Wolf and I are back. Where else inside Trump's head? I think the other thing that's worth adding here, and it's interesting that you explain the process that they just left the cameras running because they couldn't get him to read the script, is that most normal politicians, and you certainly saw this play out in the last leadership election with Carmelah Harris, is they are frightened of television. They are scared of saying something which will haunt them, which will get played across social media, and they've got no ability or their team has no ability to keep the narrative moving. And the surprisingly competent thing that Trump does is just keep the narrative moving.

I mean, it was only this time, you know, two weeks ago we were talking about the catastrophic truth social post he put out about the Reiner's death, Rob Reiner and Michelle Singer's death, and his ability to drive a story forward is frankly unprecedented. No, well, it is real, again, a real experience here. I mean, I mean, a real relevant experience. No, no, utterly relevant. To be on television. Well, and to be the star of the show on television and to be playing a character that, as you say, America believes he is America's businessman, even though his businesses around him, the casinos, the stakes, the water, the champagne, the university are all underwater.

No, and it's important, I mean, another small note here is that the apprentice makes him a lot of money. It essentially rescues him on a financial basis. Well, and there's something very humorous about when he stops doing it, and Martha Stewart takes over for a season, and Arnold Schwarzenegger takes over for a season, that he's obsessed by their ratings and the fact their ratings are not as good as his ratings. No, and it's interesting to look at why that's the case, and I don't have an answer here, except that there is something more, even from those two people who are pretty consummate performers. There is something looser about Trump. I mean, he just is, there's a, you know, the unhinged in television works better than the controlled.

Yeah, the unhinged works better than the hinged. And then as you've always maintained, his hair is something that even if there's a dip in the show and there's a character who's not very interesting, the minute they flash back to Trump's hair, you're like, how is that possible? How is he doing that? Why doesn't he understand he looks ridiculous? But as you've always said, he doesn't care. The point is you remember what he looks like, and that's what he wants.

He wants the attention, and that's been the through line. It's his operating system. Television is his operating system. It's how he communicates. And it's unlike anything we've seen before, and it's almost impossible to go up against. No, and again, what does he see himself as? Does he see himself as a politician? Does he see himself as a historical figure?

Does he see himself as a dictator? No, he sees himself as a star. Well, I was going to say he sees himself as the most famous man in the world. Well, that's a star. It's a star. Michael, that's a fascinating rundown. And I think it gives insight into why we go inside Trump's head three times a week to try and understand his presidency from this purview, which is still

not how most people think of him. They think of him as a very unusual politician who's bucking all the usual things and isn't it outrageous? And they spend a lot of time furious that he's not doing the normal thing instead of trying to understand what he is doing. That he is no politician at all. That that is the furthest thing. That is he. his innovation here. Yeah, and I'm sure he finds... I am not a politician. I am really not a politician.

I mean, many politicians say I'm not a politician, but that's part of being a politician. Well, and I'm sure he finds... Trump is legitimately not a politician, not interested in politics. Doesn't even like politics. Well, I was going to say he doesn't like politicians, right? That's not who he hangs out with.

He wants to hang out with his golf club buddies. He wants to hang out at Mar-a-Lago. But it's not like he wants all his republics. people, all the other politicians who have to answer to their constituents around him. Right. Remembers, his 17 days before he got to be the president, 17 days in Washington. I know we talk about it every week from this point of view, but just reminding oneself of the Mark Bennett of it, all the Roger Ailes of it, all the Jeff Zucker of it all, all

these characters in his journey. And still he's the colossus across television. And as we saw from his pre-Christmas address where he was speaking at twice as usual speed from the podium with a load of greenery behind him, he can command an audience still. So Michael, one of the other things that Trump has been masterful at is the debates, the debates in 2016 and then, of course, his famous debate, which was catastrophic for Joe Biden. where his knowledge of television and his ability to command the stage became paramount. Well, that's from a performance standpoint. But I think that there's another, you can even go back. And the moment I thought, oh, my God, something is going on here,

happened in the first debate, the first Republican debate in 2016, which actually happened in 2015. and that was a whole lineup of countless Republicans, of countless Republican pygmies on the stage. And there was Donald Trump. Now, debates like that, up until that point, usually got an audience of, you know, a respectable audience would be 3 million.

Yeah. That debate, 2015, the first debate of the first debate of, the of the Republican 2016 season got an audience of 25 million. 25 million? Yes. That should have been the moment in which everybody said, oh my God, the world has changed. And was this where he went on to sort of throw out his nicknames for people like

low energy jab and little Marco? Well, yeah, that's not the moment I remember. The moment I remember was the moment in which everybody is asked, will you support the Republican, whoever is the Republican nominee? Right. Everybody says. There's only one answer there. And the answer is obviously, yes, I will support the nominee of my party.

At which point, Donald Trump, who is not only nominally a Republican, comes out and says, no, no, no. And so it's that it's a double. So 25 million people tune in because of the ridiculousness of seeing Donald Trump on the presidential debate stage. And then people are rewarded by this guy saying things, something that nobody else would say. So that's the moment in which really we should have said everything is in the process of changing. And not only would no one else say, but would normally be disqualifying, utterly disqualifying.

Except for the fact that you get a 25 million, an audience of 25 million. Because he's an entertainer, because he knows how to entertain. So that's the ratings things. Ratings are everything. You know, even during the 2016

campaign, you know, he would do these rallies, which regularly got 30, 40, 60,000 people. And the Democrats would say, you know, regard that as kind of low rent in some way. That's not how modern campaigns work. And, of course, that was an absolute indication of someone speaking to an audience in terms that were, well, but beyond effective, absolutely passionate. He was the show. And we mentioned this last week when we talked about the Epstein files and the fact that Bill Clinton was among the first pictures to be released in the dump that they did last a couple of weeks ago. And of course, his decision suggested by Steve Bannon to bring the women who claimed they'd been abused by Bill Clinton

to sit on the front row of his debate, one of his debates with Hillary. And again, people switched on because you couldn't believe that he would do something like this. And he switched on to see what would happen. And it undoubtedly unnerved Hillary Clinton. Reality television. Reality television. And I think perhaps we should finish this episode on television by acknowledging that he has achieved this remarkable control over television from the presidency.

So he is not only created a television presidency, but he has used the presidency to give him power over every one of the networks. I mean, we've just had a thing, this 60 minutes, again, 60 minutes. I mean, he's been reverting to another age of television. He sees 60 minutes as 60 minutes, which nobody watches. He sees it as still as a kind of foundational news show. And in 60 minutes, the new head of news at CBS, Barry Weiss, who reports to the Ellison family,

who are beholden to Donald Trump and need Donald Trump in their efforts to buy Warner discovery, essentially canceled a segment on 60 Minutes about Trump White House immigration policies and the way they are sending deportees to a prison, a horrible prison in El Salvador. So Barry Weiss, you know, said, you know, basically, I mean, they're already promoting this segment, already ready to go, and she cancels it. So, and that is without, without question, a direct let's, how do we keep the White House happy? This has happened at ABC. This has happened. This is just everybody in any media organization.

which has has any in which there is any possibility that the Trump White House can cause problems for it has bowed to Donald Trump.

Well, and I think one of the things that Barry Weiss had said was that the show shouldn't go ahead because it didn't have a comment from the government. Yeah, well, it doesn't but this is all meaning what she's saying. She said, you know, effectively what she's saying is we have something that might

antagonize the administration. No, no, I understand that. But the excuse she gave was that they didn't have anybody from the government. And I'm dismissing the excuse. I don't want to give it. I don't want to give it air time because it's a bullshit excuse. Yeah, it's strictly a political, a political judgment. This was going to give them problems. Right. And as we know, he's suing, he's suing the BBC, suing the New York Times. He's suing. their Wall Street Journal. Right. So this is all about, you know,

Donald Trump wanting, wanting, wanting, you know, to, this is, this is, this is the world

that he most cares about, the media, and this is the world he wants to dominate. It's just been a remarkable journey, a remarkable journey for all of us, because we're all passengers, on his train.

No, we're all viewers of his reality television. Well, actually, we're all extras in his reality show. I think we're all, well, maybe part of it, some of us are the audience, some of us are extras. You're an extra. I'm in the audience. I'm just watching. I've just got the popcorn out.

Anyway, if you have been, thank you very much for joining us. That was a long episode this morning, but I think it was a thorough journey, which explains why our perspective on insolvenors. inside Trump's head, where we go three times a week, is what it is. Michael, any comments before I ask people to subscribe to the Daily Beast podcast, leave us a comment. We're independent media, so we love your support. And don't forget to subscribe to the Daily Beast, too, for endless, constant updates on what an earth is coming out of the Oval Office. I'm done. I don't know how these guys go on for hours and hours on their podcast. I know. I mean,

how does Joe Rogan do it? We've just gone on for longer than an hour and Joe Rogan manages to do three hours. I don't know how he does it. How is that possible? I guess people chop it up into little bits. Yeah, or Donald Trump when he goes on, you know, a two hour speech and he could go on for much longer. Indeed, he could. But we don't have to. And we should thank our top level members. And they are Sandra Clark. Meethinks. Travel with Carl, Andrew Beaver, The Cappanator, Harry Clark, Dawn McCarthy, Daniel Dog Lover, M. Griner, Fulvia Orlando, Herbie, Andrew Melor, Lazz Conde, Bonzo, Val Love Francesco, Andrea Hodel, Bocock, D.C., Sharon Shipley, Connie Rutherford, Karen White, Heidi Riley. Thank you all. Devin, Anna, and Jesse, we are in your dead. Want more great listens? Check out our comedy podcast, The Last Laugh, and our star-studded The Daily Beast podcast at thedailybeast.com slash podcasts.

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