5 Crazy Details From New Book On Trump and His Infantile Dependence on Fox News — the ‘Gorilla Channel’
New York Times television critic James Poniewozik has a new book coming out on President Donald Trump’s relationship with television, and his near-dependence on Fox News.
The book has a number of bizarre details about Trump’s predilections related to what he sees on TV, some of them on display in an excerpt published by Vanity Fair. The book, Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America, will be released next week.
The excerpt also features an extended discussion about Fox News as “the gorilla channel,” based off a joke fake excerpt from Michael Wolff’s Fire & Fury.
A number of these details have been reported previously.
1. Trump ordered the release of classified intelligence because “great” Fox hosts said he should.
“Trump ordered the release of classified intelligence on the Russia investigation at the behest of his favorite TV hosts: “the great Lou Dobbs, the great Sean Hannity, the wonderful great Jeanine Pirro.”
2. Trump watches up to eight hours of television every day.
“It was real that the president’s staff tried, fruitlessly, to manage him by managing what TV he saw and limiting his “screen time.” (Steve Bannon, seeing that his boss was mainlining up to eight hours of the tube a day, asked, “Think what your brain would be like if you did that?”)”
3. A good way to get a meeting or calls back with Trump is to appear on TV shows he watches…with great teeth?
“It was real that political reporters would get thousands of dollars’ worth of dental work, to look more telegenic when the president saw them on his programs, the better to get their calls returned from the White House.
It was real that critics, lobbyists, and corporations trying to persuade or curry favor with the administration started reaching out to the president, not by booking meetings, but by buying commercial time on the TV-news shows he binge-watched.”
4. Trump refused to watch Morning Joe but made Hope Hicks recap it for him every day. Also, Michael Wolff got White House access from Reliable Sources hits.
He would refuse to watch MSNBC’s Morning Joe out of pique, then have his 28-year-old assistant Hope Hicks—formerly a PR aide to Ivanka Trump—tremulously recap the show for him every morning. (Wolff got White House access in the first place because Trump had seen him say nice things about him on CNN’s Reliable Sources.)
5. Rep. Elijah Cummings immediately got a phone call from Trump by asking him for a meeting live on Morning Joe.
“Maryland representative Elijah Cummings, seeking a meeting with Trump about opioid abuse, said on Morning Joe: “To the president: I know you’re watching, so I’m looking forward to meeting with you.” That morning, Trump called him.”
[Image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]
