{"text":[[{"start":7.24,"text":"To predict Donald Trump’s actions, it’s crucial to understand that he thinks like a television producer. From Minneapolis to Iran, he is guided more by storylines than policy or even popularity. That has always been true. But in January, he switched TV genre, ditching his tired reality show for a new action-adventure series. That shift is spreading danger worldwide."}],[{"start":35.82,"text":"The young Trump considered going to film school, but his father was very keen for him to work for the family real-estate company. Still, after an erratic career in business, Trump found his vocation hosting the TV reality show The Apprentice. (Fans who think his genius is for business are making a category error.) His appetite for transgression and conflict made him a reality star. But his range in TV was broad: he also appeared in pro wrestling contests, talk shows and cameo roles in sitcoms, while starring in real-life courtroom dramas. "}],[{"start":75.6,"text":"When he abandoned the declining TV industry, he brought its techniques to politics. He treated the 2016 election as a reality show, beating overcautious dullards like Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton (and in 2024, Kamala Harris) who didn’t understand what genre they were in. He was mocked during his first term for watching hours of TV a day, but he wasn’t just relaxing: he was studying. "}],[{"start":104.53999999999999,"text":"The first term was an unmissable high-stakes reality series, livestreamed on social media and TV. The star carried the show. One shocking remark or the firing of a character, from Steve Bannon to Anthony Scaramucci, kept audiences agog for days. Policy barely featured."}],[{"start":125.77999999999999,"text":"But reality TV is a dying genre. In the second term, his show stopped working. The older Trump is a rambling, low-energy performer. Like many reality stars, he has lost shock value: nothing he says can still surprise us. He has also stopped firing people, having learnt that this created a stream of enemies who published tell-all books. His last set-piece conflict was the dressing-down of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, more than a year ago. “Great television,” enthused Trump afterwards, but it was led by JD Vance, and may have been unintentional. Trump quite likely expected Zelenskyy to grovel, not argue back."}],[{"start":168.67,"text":"These days, unwanted characters are gently eased out. Trump didn’t even fire Elon Musk, and gave departing homeland security secretary Kristi Noem a fake job as “Shield of the Americas”. The surviving cast consists of sycophants. Many, like Pete Hegseth, are former Fox News hosts who look the part but are dull characters. The show sometimes descends to dictator-style TV, with the sycophants declaiming praise poems around the seated leader."}],[{"start":202.54999999999998,"text":"By Christmas, as the frustrated audience demanded an Epstein Files season, Trump faced a dilemma. Any struggling TV show will be tempted to “jump the shark”, creating nonsensical spectaculars. (The phrase comes from an episode in the sitcom Happy Days when the star, the Fonz, jumped over a live shark while waterskiing.)"}],[{"start":227.02999999999997,"text":"So Trump switched genre to action-adventure. Each new mini-series was meant to be short and snappy. The invasion of Minneapolis was aborted when it got complicated, while the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro ran to schedule. “I watched it, literally, like I was watching a television show,” exulted Trump. "}],[{"start":249.96999999999997,"text":"The war in Iran, from an original idea by Benjamin Netanyahu, initially looked made for TV. “How do you like the performance?” Trump proudly asked one reporter. “I mean, Venezuela is obvious. This might be even better.” The real-life death toll seemed irrelevant. Perhaps coincidentally, the show overshadowed the release of FBI interviews with an Epstein victim who said Trump sexually assaulted her in her early teens. (Trump denies all wrongdoing, and a White House spokesperson has described the accusations as being completely baseless and backed by “zero credible evidence”.)"}],[{"start":289.75,"text":"But the war has probably already dragged on longer than Trump intended. American audience ratings are negative. Trump is being superseded by post-TV influencer-politicians like Zohran Mamdani, who think in a new metric: video completion rate, which measures what proportion of viewers finish a clip. Trump — who delivered the longest State of the Union address on record — hasn’t grasped that one."}],[{"start":317.05,"text":"Still, he wants to move on from Iran, which risks becoming an endless ratings-killer like Vietnam. He keeps hinting that the next show could be Cuba. But he has years of episodes to fill. What storylines are in development? Greenland again, or new material? Trump’s action series can do more damage than any reality show. "}],[{"start":339.93,"text":"Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend Magazine on X and FT Weekend on Instagram"}],[{"start":356.04,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1773976893_6304.mp3"}