Latest news with #SalenaZito
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Butler by Salena Zito review – how Trump won America's heartland
The Democrats' famed blue wall is more the stuff of nostalgia than reality. On election day 2024, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin voted for Donald Trump for the second time in three elections. Barack Obama's upstairs-downstairs coalition lies in ruins, as Democrats struggle to connect with working-class voters across racial and ethnic lines. Last November, Trump came within just three points of winning a majority of Latino voters. Such Americans walked away from their presumed political home – in droves. A Trump endorsement by Roberto Clemente Jr, son of the late Pittsburgh Pirates baseball star, was a harbinger. Likewise, Trump posted double-digit gains among Catholics and Jews, once core constituencies in the Democratic party of FDR. To quote Bob Dylan, 'The times, they are a changin'.' Into the fray jumps Salena Zito with her latest book, Butler, and its dramatic subtitle, The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland. Zito is definitely a Trump fan, living in western Pennsylvania, a place that's become part of Trumplandia. No wonder: her analysis is sharp-eyed and her anecdotes revealing – she walks among Them. Beyond that, she possesses roots and an affinity for her 'Yinzers'. These days, she writes for the Washington Examiner and is a contributor to the Washington Post. Last time out, with The Great Revolt, co-authored with Brad Todd in 2018, she painted a portrait of Trump's base that was not standard GOP-issue and a Democratic party overly reliant on coastal elites. That take remains valid. Other than in faculty meetings, you can't win elections solely with the votes of JDs, MDs and PhDs. More voters lack four year-degrees than those who have them. Butler, turns to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the failed July 2024 assassination attempt on Trump, as a serendipitously fitting backdrop and fulcrum of the events that preceded and followed. She had access to the Trump, JD Vance and the senior staff of the campaign. Trump delivers bouquets of compliments. Zito is flattered, even enthusiastic. She enjoys the rapport, admires her subject. Trump is not a lab specimen or patient. She is not his psychologist. Rather, he talks to her, expresses concern about her grandchildren, and offers a lesson in politics 101: empathy goes far. On the page, Trump takes Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to task for waiting a year before appearing at the village of East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a major railcar disaster, 42 miles from Butler. 'They never showed up to see them,' Trump tells Zito. 'Never. It's a shame. I did, I came, I told them I would not forget them and I won't.' Ohio, Vance's state, went Republican by better than 10 points. All of Ohio's top elected officials are now Republicans. In polarized times, ticket-splitting grows rare. Elon Musk talked to Zito too. There's nothing like the zeal of a 12-figure convert, the world's richest person. Given the current fallout between Musk and Trump, it is memorable stuff, a bromance before it went off the rails. Butler unintentionally delivers a packet of receipts. 'I asked Musk if I could interview him, and he said: sure,' Zito recalls. ''Who are the ones that are trying to silence free speech? That's the Democrats,'' Musk advises. 'They're the ones trying to silence free speech,' he continues. 'You know who the bad guys are – the ones who want to stop you from speaking. Those are the bad guys. It's a no-brainer.' To put it mildly, irony abounds. Never mind what Musk did to X, formerly Twitter, in terms of promoting one sort of view and quashing another. Since their relationship turned to dust, Trump has threatened to deport Musk and cancel his government contracts. In hindsight, that the Trump-Musk relationship would last long would have been a bad bet. Sign up to What's On Get the best TV reviews, news and features in your inbox every Monday after newsletter promotion Musk vows to support primary challenges against Republicans who stuck with the president on his sweeping bill of cuts to taxes and spending. But whatever you think of the legislation or Musk, Trump holds a decisive advantage. Beyond the obvious, regarding simple power, Trump is a far better showman. Startling to say it, he is way less weird. Musk is the nerd who always wanted to hang with the cool kids. Zito devotes attention to the dichotomy between the 'placed' and the 'placeless' – 'people who are rooted in their places versus people who are essentially nomads' – and its relationship to politics and Trump. The placed are with him; the placeless, not so much. Such demographic faultlines are global. They played an outsized role in the fight over Brexit. Populism is not restricted to the US. In 2017, David Goodhart wrote Road to Somewhere, which examined the forces that drove Brexit. He placed a premium on describing how a sense of belonging has come to shape politics, in an uncertain world. His typology divided society between 'anywheres' and 'somewheres', with the archetypal anywhere possessing a degree or two from Oxbridge or the Ivy League, a portable skill set, and a spouse who shares similar credentials. By contrast, somewheres lack those markers, and find the world a less welcoming place. GDP figures and personal income statistics alone do not convey the entire story. In 2016, 'fuck your feelings' was a Trumpian battle cry – though those shouting it did not take kindly to being called deplorable by Hillary Clinton or, eight years later, being called 'garbage' by Biden. As expected, Zito calls out Clinton and Biden for their missteps. Trump or his base, not so much. Yeah, there's asymmetry. But if you're a Democrat, punching down is seldom a winning strategy. Butler is published in the US by Hachette
The Guardian
18 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Butler by Salena Zito review – how Trump won America's heartland
The Democrats' famed blue wall is more the stuff of nostalgia than reality. On election day 2024, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin voted for Donald Trump for the second time in three elections. Barack Obama's upstairs-downstairs coalition lies in ruins, as Democrats struggle to connect with working-class voters across racial and ethnic lines. Last November, Trump came within just three points of winning a majority of Latino voters. Such Americans walked away from their presumed political home – in droves. A Trump endorsement by Roberto Clemente Jr, son of the late Pittsburgh Pirates baseball star, was a harbinger. Likewise, Trump posted double-digit gains among Catholics and Jews, once core constituencies in the Democratic party of FDR. To quote Bob Dylan, 'The times, they are a changin'.' Into the fray jumps Salena Zito with her latest book, Butler, and its dramatic subtitle, The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland. Zito is definitely a Trump fan, living in western Pennsylvania, a place that's become part of Trumplandia. No wonder: her analysis is sharp-eyed and her anecdotes revealing – she walks among Them. Beyond that, she possesses roots and an affinity for her 'Yinzers'. These days, she writes for the Washington Examiner and is a contributor to the Washington Post. Last time out, with The Great Revolt, co-authored with Brad Todd in 2018, she painted a portrait of Trump's base that was not standard GOP-issue and a Democratic party overly reliant on coastal elites. That take remains valid. Other than in faculty meetings, you can't win elections solely with the votes of JDs, MDs and PhDs. More voters lack four year-degrees than those who have them. Butler, turns to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the failed July 2024 assassination attempt on Trump, as a serendipitously fitting backdrop and fulcrum of the events that preceded and followed. She had access to the Trump, JD Vance and the senior staff of the campaign. Trump delivers bouquets of compliments. Zito is flattered, even enthusiastic. She enjoys the rapport, admires her subject. Trump is not a lab specimen or patient. She is not his psychologist. Rather, he talks to her, expresses concern about her grandchildren, and offers a lesson in politics 101: empathy goes far. On the page, Trump takes Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to task for waiting a year before appearing at the village of East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a major railcar disaster, 42 miles from Butler. 'They never showed up to see them,' Trump tells Zito. 'Never. It's a shame. I did, I came, I told them I would not forget them and I won't.' Ohio, Vance's state, went Republican by better than 10 points. All of Ohio's top elected officials are now Republicans. In polarized times, ticket-splitting grows rare. Elon Musk talked to Zito too. There's nothing like the zeal of a 12-figure convert, the world's richest person. Given the current fallout between Musk and Trump, it is memorable stuff, a bromance before it went off the rails. Butler unintentionally delivers a packet of receipts. 'I asked Musk if I could interview him, and he said: sure,' Zito recalls. ''Who are the ones that are trying to silence free speech? That's the Democrats,'' Musk advises. 'They're the ones trying to silence free speech,' he continues. 'You know who the bad guys are – the ones who want to stop you from speaking. Those are the bad guys. It's a no-brainer.' To put it mildly, irony abounds. Never mind what Musk did to X, formerly Twitter, in terms of promoting one sort of view and quashing another. Since their relationship turned to dust, Trump has threatened to deport Musk and cancel his government contracts. In hindsight, that the Trump-Musk relationship would last long would have been a bad bet. Sign up to What's On Get the best TV reviews, news and features in your inbox every Monday after newsletter promotion Musk vows to support primary challenges against Republicans who stuck with the president on his sweeping bill of cuts to taxes and spending. But whatever you think of the legislation or Musk, Trump holds a decisive advantage. Beyond the obvious, regarding simple power, Trump is a far better showman. Startling to say it, he is way less weird. Musk is the nerd who always wanted to hang with the cool kids. Zito devotes attention to the dichotomy between the 'placed' and the 'placeless' – 'people who are rooted in their places versus people who are essentially nomads' – and its relationship to politics and Trump. The placed are with him; the placeless, not so much. Such demographic faultlines are global. They played an outsized role in the fight over Brexit. Populism is not restricted to the US. In 2017, David Goodhart wrote Road to Somewhere, which examined the forces that drove Brexit. He placed a premium on describing how a sense of belonging has come to shape politics, in an uncertain world. His typology divided society between 'anywheres' and 'somewheres', with the archetypal anywhere possessing a degree or two from Oxbridge or the Ivy League, a portable skill set, and a spouse who shares similar credentials. By contrast, somewheres lack those markers, and find the world a less welcoming place. GDP figures and personal income statistics alone do not convey the entire story. In 2016, 'fuck your feelings' was a Trumpian battle cry – though those shouting it did not take kindly to being called deplorable by Hillary Clinton or, eight years later, being called 'garbage' by Biden. As expected, Zito calls out Clinton and Biden for their missteps. Trump or his base, not so much. Yeah, there's asymmetry. But if you're a Democrat, punching down is seldom a winning strategy. Butler is published in the US by Hachette
Fox News
30-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
CNN host praises President Trump for being 'on a roll,' citing very 'consequential' week
CNN's Michael Smerconish made the case on his show Saturday that President Donald Trump was "on a roll" the past week. "I'm talking about offering an objective analysis in view of what's transpired in the last two weeks that I've laid out substantively and with data. He's been on a roll," Smerconish said. "It might not be the roll that you desire, but I like the word that David [Urban] used and that Salena Zito used in her column this morning. Consequential. Who among us could deny how consequential Trump 2.0 is turning out to be? But in order for you to recognize that, you need to have an open mind about what's transpiring." Smerconish presented a poll to his audience about whether they would be willing to have an open mind regarding Trump. Near the end of the show, he revealed the results that showed 72% of those who responded said they would not have an open mind about Trump. "I applaud those of you who are part of the 72% who say you do not have an open mind on Donald Trump, and the reason that I'm applauding you is not that I appreciate your closed-mindedness," Smerconish said. "I appreciate your candor. Like, you don't want to hear it." He continued, "I made the case at the outset of the program today that he's had a good two weeks. No B.S. He's winning, maybe not in a way you want. There are many things that he's doing that I disagree with. And I tell you what they are. Every day on radio and once a week here. But you got to stand back and say it's consequential. It is consequential. So, interesting." Over the last week, the Trump administration touted several successes, including a U.S. military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, a potential ceasefire between Iran and Israel and a NATO agreement to boost defense spending after the president's demands. The Supreme Court also ruled to limit nationwide injunctions by federal judges which have limited several of Trump's executive orders. Although Smerconish has disagreed with Trump's actions, he has argued that the media's "constant browbeating" against him may have led to his re-election. "It's like a parenting lesson. The more that you tell people what they can't do, what's intolerable, you must not do this, you should not do this, the more they're going to rebel," he said during an interview in November.
Times
26-06-2025
- Politics
- Times
Trump hates the media. This is the one journalist he loves
The whizzing noise could have been mistaken for fireworks, but Salena Zito owned a gun and knew the sound of one. Those were shots flying over her head in Donald Trump's direction. Four of them. Zito was in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 last year because she was a local journalist and Trump was her beat. She had chronicled his upset win in 2016, his loss in 2020, his political exile, his unlikely comeback. Minutes earlier she had been backstage talking to the president about his re-election campaign, and he was upbeat. Now she was standing only four feet away from the biggest moment of his campaign, possibly his life. As blood trickled down his cheek and Secret Service agents stormed the stage, Trump raised his fist in the air and shouted 'USA!' Amid the chaos, Zito had been pinned to the ground by a security detail. Her shocked face and splayed-out legs, clad in her signature cowboy boots, were broadcast live on Fox News. Her daughter, a photographer, and son-in-law were all next to her, also on the ground. 'I knew I was a witness to history,' Zito told me. But also, she said, 'I had a job to do.' • Meet Zohran Mamdani, the man who promises to make NYC affordable That meant filing a piece the next day, breaking the news that Trump was ripping up the speech he had planned to give at the Republican National Convention later that week. 'The speech will be a lot different, a lot different than it would've been two days ago,' he told Zito. 'This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together.' 'If there was any doubt,' Zito said of Trump's chances of re-election before then, 'Butler sealed the deal.' Zito writes about this pivotal moment in her new book, Butler. She has already sold the rights to Pennsylvania-based Pensé Productions, which plans to make a film about that day and her decade covering Trump, first as a reporter for her local paper and now as a full-time journalist for the Washington Examiner. For the past ten years, Zito has portrayed the Maga base with affection — an approach that critics say makes her too sympathetic and cosy with the president. But it has also given her an advantage: she correctly called Trump's win in 2016 when everyone believed he would lose, earning her the nickname 'the Trump whisperer'. 'It's not that I'm particularly brilliant, it has to do with where I come from,' she told me over a video call from her tidy home in western Pennsylvania, her untamed curls threatening to take up the entirety of my screen. 'I've watched these voters move from the left to the centre-right with Trump,' she said. 'People in western Pennsylvania decide elections and they aren't understood by the mainstream media.' In a 2016 piece for The Atlantic, Zito explained why Trump — a brash and wealthy playboy from New York, running on a Republican ticket — was winning old-school working-class Democrats. 'The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally,' she wrote. Her ability to read the pulse of Maga has meant that Trump himself has expressed a fondness for her that is surprising, considering his disdain for the media. Backstage before his rallies, he sometimes calls her 'my Salena', and since his second inauguration, they have spoken on the phone twice and text each other often, she told me. 'It comes in spurts,' she said of his texting. 'But it's always with a purpose.' • Trump should not defy judges' orders, exclusive poll says Last month, speaking to a group of workers at a steel plant in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, the president said of Zito, who was in the crowd: 'She understands people and me, better than we do.' Zito laughed as she told me that Trump's communication team texted her before that event: 'So, Salena, how would you like to go on Air Force One?' At first, Zito hesitated, thinking about the logistics of it all. 'The plant is in my backyard. It's nine miles from my house,' she said. She would have to travel to Washington to catch a flight on Air Force One to the plant and then fly back to the capital, which is a four-hour drive from her home town of Murrysville. But the invitation was from the president, and she accepted. Initially, Zito sat in a conference room on Air Force One until White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, came to collect her. 'Karoline said, 'No, no, no, Salena, come back here, the president wants you to come up and sit with him,'' Zito recalled. 'I went into the executive suite, sat down across from President Trump and rode the whole way with him.' I asked what they talked about on board. 'He was just really happy for me,' Zito said. 'He said, 'You work really hard. That's one thing I really like about you, Salena, is that you work really hard.'' Zito said she and the president would always 'be tied together', not only because of his unique fondness for her, but because of where she's from. 'One of Trump's superpowers is that he's most curious about the people who do the jobs: police officers, janitors, beauticians,' she said. 'He understands that the American people have been lacking that sort of connective tissue with the person that's leading the country.' Zito, who grew up in western Pennsylvania and never left, came to journalism late in life. In her mid-thirties, while going through a divorce and raising two kids, she got a job working for the Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter. It was there, she said, that she developed a feel for local politics and the average people affected by them. People like her. 'I've worked at a sewer treatment plant. I've been a shampoo girl, a cafeteria lady. I've worked in a daycare centre,' said Zito, 65, a grandmother of four children aged two to nine. Eventually she became a political reporter covering steel country for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. To properly capture her subjects, Zito says she doesn't take 'interstates or highways, only back roads', because 'I would miss what is happening on the ground. That's where you see where the country is going.' That is why Scott Sander, the owner and co-founder of Pensé Productions, told me he wanted to make a movie about Zito's life, which is expected to be released next year. Sander, who produces movies about 'real people and real stories', praised Zito's doggedness in covering the heartland and its people. 'She's the living embodiment of the type of journalist that is desperately needed and swiftly dying,' he said. 'She's very adept about interacting with people and finding the truth about the story.' Zito has been accused, by other outlets, of bias in her coverage of Trump, focusing more on feelings than facts. In 2018, she was accused of making up quotes and plagiarising her stories — claims she refuted in a piece for the New York Post. She says many journalists do not like her style of reporting about Trump's base because they 'despise and don't understand who they cover', adding that she is 'fine with her objectivity'. (Like many in her state, Zito has fluctuated in her party allegiance: she became a registered Democrat in 1977 before switching to the Republican party in 1998.) • Change of tune as Donald Trump praises Zelensky and criticises Putin But even Zito has not escaped Trump's accusations of being a 'fake news' journalist. After she interviewed the newly re-elected governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, in 2023 when he was eyeing his own presidential run, Trump posted an angry message on Truth Social accusing her of writing a 'puff piece'. She said she found the post 'funny'. One year later, Trump called her and gave her his personal phone number. The next time she came face to face with him was backstage in Butler, minutes before he was shot. She told Trump that she was convinced Pennsylvania was leaning red again, after breaking for Joe Biden in 2020. 'Interesting,' Trump replied. By the end of that day, Zito realised that the horror in Butler — and Trump's reaction to it — had probably won him re-election. Was it just a photo-op, I asked. Or was he truly defiant and composed in the face of death? The day after the shooting, Trump called her. 'He told me he needed to show strength and resoluteness so that the American people wouldn't panic,' Zito said. 'He wanted to make sure that people knew it was OK, that the country was going to be OK.' But, she said, Trump cannot forget Corey Comperatore, the 50-year-old firefighter and father of two who was killed that day. 'I don't think that'll ever leave him,' Zito said. 'There is a deep sadness within him. The thing that has hit him the hardest is that someone died because they came to see him.' When I suggested we might have moved on too quickly from that day, the near assassination of a former and future president having got lost in our fast-moving news cycle, Zito agreed. But she said she thought Trump's speed and intensity — the social media posts, the sudden immigration raids, the Doge cuts, the recent attack on Iran — were driven by the fact that he almost died one year ago in Butler. Zito said Trump believes there was 'a reason he was saved'. 'He believes he has this obligation as someone who was saved to live up to that moment. The swiftness with which this new administration is acting is reflective of that day,' she said. 'There's this urgency of 'now'. The realisation that we are not always guaranteed a tomorrow.' Read an excerpt from Butler (Hachette), out July 8
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Contributor: The Israeli Embassy killings and the ominous turn in political violence
Actions, we know, have consequences. And an apparent Marxist's cold-blooded murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington on Wednesday night was the natural and inevitable consequence of a conscientious, years-long campaign to dehumanize Jews and otherize all supporters of the world's only Jewish state. Seriously, what did you think was going to happen? Some of President Trump's more colorful all-caps and exclamation-mark-filled social media posts evince an impending jackboot, we're sometimes told. (Hold aside, for now, columnist Salena Zito's apt 2016 quip about taking Trump seriously but not literally.) Words either have meaning or they don't. And many left-wing Americans have, for a long time now, argued that they have tremendous meaning. How often, as the concept of the 'microaggression' and its campus 'safe space' corollary took off last decade, were we told that 'words are violence'? (I'll answer: A lot!) So are we really not supposed to take seriously the clear calls for Jewish genocide that have erupted on American campuses and throughout American streets since the Hamas pogrom of Oct. 7, 2023? Are we really supposed to believe that chants such as 'globalize the intifada,' 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' and 'there is only one solution, intifada revolution' are vague and open to competing interpretations? That doesn't even pass the laugh test. When pro-Israel Jewish American Paul Kessler died after being hit on the head during a clash of protesters in Thousand Oaks on Nov. 5, 2023, that is what 'intifada revolution' looks like in practice. When Israeli woman Tzeela Gez was murdered by a jihadist while en route to the hospital to deliver her baby earlier this month, that was what 'from the river to the sea' looks like in practice. And when two young Israeli Embassy staffers were executed while leaving an event this week at Washington's Capital Jewish Museum, that is what 'globalize the intifada' looks like in practice. Really, what did you think was going to happen? Indeed, it is the easily foreseeable nature of Wednesday night's slayings that is perhaps the most tragic part of it all. The suspect in the deaths of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim left behind a handy manifesto laying out a clear political motivation. This was not a random drive-by shooting. Hardly. This was a deliberate act — what appears to be an act of domestic terrorism. And the suspect, Elias Rodriguez, has a long history of involvement in far-left activist causes. If the killer intended to target Jews, then the fact that both victims were apparently Christian only underscores the 'globalize' part of 'globalize the intifada.' Zito had it right back in 2016: Trump's social media posts should be taken seriously, not literally. But when it comes to the murderous, genocidal clamoring for Jewish and Israeli blood that has become increasingly ubiquitous ever since the Jews themselves suffered their single bloodiest day since the Third Reich, such anti-Israel and antisemitic words must be taken both seriously and literally. A previous generation of lawmakers once urged Americans to fight the terrorists 'over there' so that they can't harm us 'here.' How quaint! The discomfiting reality in the year 2025 is this: The radicals, both homegrown and foreign-born alike, are already here. There are monsters in our midst. And those monsters are not limited to jihadists. Domestic terrorists these days come from all backgrounds. The deaths of two Israeli diplomats are yet another reminder (not that we needed it): Politically motivated violence in the contemporary United States is not an equivalent problem on both the left and the right. In 2012, Floyd Lee Corkins attempted to shoot up the socially conservative Family Research Council because he heard it was 'anti-gay.' In 2017, James Hodgkinson shot up the Republican congressional baseball team a few weeks after posting on Facebook that Trump is a 'traitor' and threat to 'our democracy.' In 2022, Nicholas Roske flew cross-country to try to assassinate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and thus prevent Roe vs. Wade from being overturned. Earlier this year, anti-Elon Musk activists burned and looted Teslas — and assaulted Tesla drivers — because of Musk's Trump administration work with his cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency. And who can forget Luigi Mangione, who is charged in the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Brian Thompson? Both 'sides' are not culpable here. They just aren't. Israel supporters in America aren't out there gunning down people waving the PLO flag. Nor are capitalists out there gunning down socialists. There is a real darkness out there in certain — increasingly widespread — pockets of the American activist left. Sure, parts of the right are also lost at the moment — but this is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Regardless, the violence must end. And we must stop treating open calls for murder or genocide as morally acceptable 'speech.' Let's pull ourselves back from the brink before more blood is shed. Josh Hammer's latest book is 'Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.' This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. @josh_hammer If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
