On April 2, Kasich was a guest of mine. Later that day, Trump addressed a rally in Racine, Wisconsin, and told the crowd: “I watched Kasich today on CNN on an abortion question. I said what a terrible answer that was. That was a terrible answer. He didn’t want to talk about it.”
Again, my show.
Plus there were several instances where he reacted to specific things I said as a CNN primary/caucus election night commentator. But as he would reference specific things I had said, there was no doubt as to what provoked him.
On April 23, I did a segment on the convoluted nature of Pennsylvania’s Republican nomination process, in which delegates are not bound to follow the electorate. Trump took note, tweeting: “Pennsylvania: Cast your vote for Trump for POTUS & ALSO vote for the TRUMP DELEGATES in your congressional district!”
Then finally, he admitted he watches.
It happened on April 23 during a rally in Waterbury, Connecticut, when he said: “I watched on television today . . . on Smerconish . . . who doesn’t necessarily treat me good.”
There were several more instances. Such as when he reacted to specific comments from a focus group I assembled on May 3, or how he called a Pennsylvania congressman because of something the man said on my program, or how he quoted something Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson told me, or when he tweeted a reaction to my interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd: “Wacky @NYTimesDowd, who hardly knows me, makes up things that I never said for her boring interviews and column. A neurotic dope!”
And then a minute later: “Crazy Maureen Dowd, the wacky columnist for the failing @nytimes, pretends she knows me well—wrong!”
It’s amazing to me that, while running for president, he had so much time to watch TV. I’m pleased he was such a fan of my program and I’m counting on him to boost my demographics from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
AFTERWORD
Trump continued to watch my program after becoming president, even while at war with CNN. I know because one month after his surprise victory, on December 10, I had a particularly contentious interview with Sean Spicer, then the chief strategist and communications director for the RNC. The subject was the presumed Russian hack of the election and a tweet Trump had sent the night before in which he downplayed the intelligence community assessment. I pressed Spicer on Trump’s unwillingness to acknowledge the Russian role and things got heated. The clip of our confrontation got lots of traction. Seth Meyers was among those who used it, in his late-night comedy montage. I knew that Spicer was pleased with his performance because the RNC released a full transcript of the exchange about an hour after it ended, including this:
SMERCONISH: Regardless of whether . . . the RNC was hacked, and that would be a big and new development—I think we know to a certainty, given Podesta and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, that the DNC was hacked—why aren’t we, as Americans, upset about the fact that a foreign hostile actor apparently put its thumb on the scale in our election, and why doesn’t Donald Trump want to get to the bottom of that as he takes office? That’s the e . . .
SPICER: Well, first of all, okay, there’s a couple things. One, is I am outraged. I don’t think any foreign entity, any individual . . .
SMERCONISH: Why don’t you say that? Why didn’t Trump say that? That’s what I haven’t heard.
SPICER: Stop and let me—okay; I just said it. Let me actually take yes for an answer. I said it. I don’t think Donald Trump doesn’t think no one thinks that a foreign entity should be interfering with the U.S. elections. Now let’s get to the next thing: What proof does anyone have that they affected the outcome? Zero. Show me what facts have actually shown that anything undermined that election. Donald Trump [got] 306 electoral votes, 62 million Americans voted for him, so what proof do you have or anyone has that any of this affected the outcome of the election?
SMERCONISH: I’m just an American who is trying to discern all that I’m reporting on and reading.
SPICER: Answer the question, Michael.
We were each satisfied with how the debate had played out, and when it ended, we quickly exchanged texts saying so and reiterating that there were no hard feelings. Later that day, David Urban, who ran the Trump campaign in Pennsylvania and is a West Point graduate, hosted the president-elect for one half of the Army-Navy football game. He told me that when Spicer entered the box, he was given a hero’s welcome by Trump for the way he had handled me. Trump had again been watching in real time. Then, two weeks later, Trump announced that Spicer was going to be his press secretary. I texted Sean: “Happy for you—you earned it (and I think I helped!). Merry Christmas.”
Spicer quickly replied: “You did! Thank you. Merry Christmas.”
Spicer, however, did not return as my guest while serving as press secretary, a casualty, I am sure, of the poor relationship between his boss and my television network. Occasionally we’d share a text, and on Friday, July 21, 2017, I finally had the opportunity to take him up on his offer to visit him in the White House. Our appointment in his West Wing office began at 9 a.m., and we spent forty-five minutes with one another in an off-the-record and wide-ranging chat. The only interruption came when Sarah Huckabee Sanders dropped by to tell Spicer something. He’d made it clear that he had a 10 o’clock meeting with the president and from time to time I saw him glance at his watch. I departed at about 9:45. By the time I returned to my hotel and turned on the news, word was breaking that Spicer had just quit his job as press secretary in a disagreement with the president over the appointment of Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director. (Scaramucci was famously fired after just 10 days on the job; Sanders was soon named as Spicer’s replacement.) So I was Spicer’s final appointment as press secretary. How appropriate, given that it clearly was our campaign exchanges that helped him get the gig. As I detailed in a Sunday Inquirer column at the time, I didn’t know his departure was imminent when we met. The timing took me by surprise, though not necessarily the outcome. And in retrospect, he did take a keen interest in how I juggle my platforms—radio, TV, print—and especially my paid speaking engagements. Soon after his departure, it was announced that he would be hitting the speaker’s circuit.
A CHANGING OF THE GUARD
IN GLADWYNE
Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, December 18, 2016
THE GUARD HOUSE was never just a restaurant. Sure there’s fine dining: Fresh Dover sole, “the best” fried oysters, and homemade meat loaf. There’s a friendly bar, where Joe didn’t need a tutorial from Mad Men to know how to pour an Old Fashioned the right way. And a wait staff of professionals who viewed their work as a career. Not to mention a rustic, unique decor born of real, 200-plus-year history, not re-creation.
But it’s been the combination of all that, plus the attention to detail of proprietor Albert Breuers, that made it a Main Line institution. A destination, not a rest stop. The kind of place where life’s milestones get celebrated. A first holy communion. Fortieth birthday. College acceptance. When good things happened, it was the only place my family wanted to be.
Now, after nearly four decades under Albert’s stewardship, the Guard House is closing on New Year’s Eve and will reopen in early 2017 only to members of the Union League. “The Guard House, located within five miles of approximately 800 of our members, has institutional integrity, is a part of American history, and is the appropriate scale to be a wonderful member amenity,” said a club bulletin.
I’m one of the lucky ones who’ll continue to take a meal in the heart of Gladwyne, and I’m sure the Union League will run a fine establishment. But it will never be the same. And I’m not thinking of Michele never complaining about my penchant for showing up without a reservation. Or the summer plate of roast beef and fresh seafood, the homemade hooch that would sometimes show up at the table after dinner, or Inge’s famous bread pudding. The missing ingredient for this famed restaurant will be its owner.
Albert is one of those pillars who gives a community strength. The type who rec
ognizes that, while his personal goal might be to make a spectacular Wiener schnitzel, his greater responsibility is to be a good neighbor. Watching him operate at a distance for so many years, I know he has succeeded by taking it all so personally.
Albert’s commitment has extended from the kitchen to the curb of Youngsford Road. It’s there, in the midmornings, when I’d see him alone, cleaning up, planting and watering geraniums in the summer and mums in the fall, attired in his black-and-white checked pants and white chef’s toque. He’s old school, a man who knows his customers better than they know him. And he has probably been brought into people’s confidences as often as Monsignor Leighton holding confession down the block at St. John Vianney. As a result of Albert’s stewardship, people mixed well at the Guard House. Green sport coats didn’t stand out, but neither did the hip millennials starting families.
We charted our kids’ growth at the Guard House, and I remember fondly that when they were younger, the building, built as an inn circa 1790, was the stuff of endless fascination. “How did that bunny hanging over the bar grow antlers?” they’d want to know about the jackalope. And they’d ask about the effigy—even if they couldn’t understand the word—of local TV host Captain Noah (Carter Merbreier and his wife, Patricia, were regulars) they once saw stashed in a closet.
But the biggest mystery—the source of countless dinner discussions—was: What lies upstairs? (One night, Albert showed them, but he must have sworn them to secrecy.) Every night ended the same way—with one of the boys ringing a brass bell, which hung outside on the front porch, before making a run for our car.
The Guard House, Gladwyne, Pennsylvania, December 2016.
There are plenty of restaurants, but only a few that take on the stature of a Guard House. I knew one other: Conti’s Cross Keys Inn in Doylestown. Walter Conti was the family patriarch and a proud member of the Penn State board of trustees, ably assisted by sons Joe and Michael. Leroy Neiman’s famed sports paintings hung on the walls and any celebrity who had reason to be in Bucks County would always stop by for the prime rib. But with Walter gone and his sons pursuing successful careers (Joe was a longtime state senator), the business closed and the site now houses a gas station. Thankfully that won’t happen to the Guard House.
Two weeks ago, at my wife’s holiday party in the back room, Albert’s son Marc reminded me that it could’ve been worse—the building could have been razed for a chain drugstore. He’s right, of course. And I was happy to hear that the telephone hasn’t stopped ringing with well-wishers and those who also wanted to book a final meal, which is now the area’s most prized reservation. Marc also noted that the staff will be invited to stay under generous terms.
When the Guard House reopens, I’ll go back. I’m going to invite Albert and Marc to dinner.
AFTERWORD
Funny that two of my favorite columns were written about places where I eat and that could not be more different, despite being located on the same block. I wrote about Gladwyne Village Lunch for the Daily News in July 2005 (included in this compilation), which, as the name implies, was a lunch counter, and then this piece about the Guard House, which is fine dining.
How appropriate, then, that when I ate my last meal at the Guard House one week before its closing, at the next table were Laura and Bill, who used to own the former. Also present that day was Monsignor Leighton, who in a lighthearted way took issue with my having written that Albert had heard as many confessions as he. He said that if it was so, it was only because Albert had been in the neighborhood longer!
2017
IN 2017, GETTING TO KNOW
THE OTHER HALF
Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, January 8, 2017
I MADE TWO NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS: one personal, one professional. The personal is patience. I’m forever trying to lengthen my fuse. Hopefully this will be the year. Professionally, my goal is to be better grounded.
I’m feeling a disconnect to just under half the nation. My failure to see Donald Trump’s ascension was compelling evidence of my being out of touch with 46 percent of the country.
I attribute that to my living in a virtual gated community defined by a number of factors, including: my zip code (No. 189 in the nation for home value, according to Forbes); my Penn Law graduate degree; my political registration as nonaffiliated; where our kids go to school; the car I drive; my weight consciousness; and even the TV I watch (loved The Crown; Duck Dynasty not so much). Even my Christmas lights—white LEDs—not the fat, colored bulbs of my youth.
And while I’m well-read from sources across the spectrum, I admit that I’m quick to discount many stories due to their origin.
My bubble is a world much different from my grandparents’ roots or the environment in which my parents raised my brother and me. Our family are Pennsylvania coal crackers who came from Eastern Europe with nothing. I grew up on a quarter-acre lot, in a three-bedroom house, which had no shower until I was in the eighth grade. That bathroom renovation was performed by an inmate on work release from the Bucks County Prison, where my father, a guidance counselor by day, ran the adult-education program. My mom stayed at home, then worked as a secretary, and, when I was in high school, hit pay dirt as a hardworking Realtor. I won’t tell you her age, but she still works, long past the point where she needs to.
I attended the Central Bucks public schools K-12, worked at McDonald’s when I turned 16, played sports with a cross section of the community, and vacationed on the Ocean City boardwalk. (I vividly remember sleeping on the floor of Mrs. A’s Boardinghouse.)
Charles Murray was prescient five years ago when he wrote of the isolation of the new upper class and the negative consequences that flow when they are segregated from the working class. In his book Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010, Murray included a quiz that was designed to show people like me just how isolated they’d become. His questions were no-brainers, he argued, for ordinary Americans: Have you ever walked on a factory floor? Who is Jimmie Johnson? Have you or your spouse ever bought a pickup truck? Since leaving school, have you ever worn a uniform? Have you ever watched an episode of Oprah, Dr. Phil, or Judge Judy all the way through?
I scored a 42, where 77 is a typical mark for a lifelong resident of a working-class neighborhood. Still, I didn’t appreciate the political significance of Murray’s work until this election, a point driven home during Christmas break, when I shared breakfast with a near-nonagenarian in southwest Florida. The meal became an exercise in field research. We were at a diner on Route 41, the Tamiami Trail in Collier County. Collier had the highest percentage of registered voters (87) who cast ballots in the state. Trump won Collier by about 45,000 votes en route to a critical Florida victory. The diner was as red as the county. I’d stepped out of my bubble and into another.
There were about 40 of us having breakfast, mostly male, all white, save an African American father and son, the former of which sported a county EMT uniform. The decor was accentuated by the grille of a 1957 Chevy coming out of the wall. Marilyn Monroe’s portrait hangs on the wall. So too, numerous recognitions from the local newspaper praising the food. In the background, the Fleetwoods were singing their 1959 hit “Come Softly to Me” (dahm dahm, dahm do dahm, ooby do).
Not surprisingly, Fox News was playing on the largest of several TVs. This was what President Barack Obama was talking about in a November Rolling Stone interview when he partly attributed Democratic losses to “Fox News in every bar and restaurant in big chunks of the country.” My dining companion had sausage and biscuits; for me, scrambled eggs.
“Trump is the only shot we have of turning this around,” he told me, never quite defining what “this” is.
That day’s main headline concerned President Barack Obama’s evicting 35 Russian diplomats from the United States as a result of the presumed hack of our recent election. “Isn’t that a serious issue?” I asked.
“Who knows if it was the Russians? How can we be sure that’s true?” said my guest
.
“Besides, we shouldn’t alienate the Russians,” he added. “They’re the only ones we can rely on to straighten out this situation with the Arabs. Maybe Trump can get the Chinese to help. It’s time to get this over with.”
I sought counsel last week from J. D. Vance, author of the best-seller Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. He told me he sees the nation’s divide as follows:
These two separate communities: They go to different schools, they eat at different restaurants, they watch different TV shows, they send their kids to play at different sports even. And eventually I think that separation is starting to infect our culture and our politics. It really worries me that so few people even understand why someone would vote for Donald Trump.
Vance advises that people seeking a better understanding make it a point to interact with folks of a different social class, which can be a challenge today in comparison with 50 years ago, when there was more mixing in the military, workplace, home, and at church.
So look for me taking more meals at Cracker Barrel, shopping at Walmart, or even lingering in the parking lot at Lincoln Financial Field instead of sidestepping tailgaters. In 2017, I’m out to burst my bubble.
AFTERWORD
I wrote this column while still licking my wounds at having missed the political rise of Donald Trump, which I attributed in large part to my geographic and socioeconomic bubble. I was, and remain, especially embarrassed at not having seen the signs where I had a front-row seat to the factors that allowed for his ascension. It was a subject I returned to in my paid speeches to private groups in early 2017, wherein I sought to explain his trajectory against the same three-decade backdrop in which my own media career was on the rise. Viewed in this context, I think I offer a pretty cogent, post-hoc analysis of how it all happened.
Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right Page 39