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James Poniewozik, the chief television critic for The New York Times, knew his job had changed when Donald Trump became president. Trump had, over the years, “achieved symbiosis with the medium” of television,” Poniewozik writes in his new book, “Audience of One.” “Its impulses were his impulses; its appetites were his appetites; its mentality was his mentality.”

On this week’s podcast, Poniewozik talks about his approach to thinking and writing about Trump and television.

“To ask him, he never changes,” Poniewozik says of Trump. “One of his quotes to one of his biographers was, ‘I’m still basically the same person that I was when I was 7 years old,’ and I think in the broad strokes, that does seem right. However, the Donald Trump that I’m writing about in the book — which is really not so much the person as the TV character Donald Trump, the public-facing performance — he sort of evolves over time. And he evolves in ways that correspond with the changes in the tone and the format of media.”

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Bina Venkataraman visits the podcast this week to discuss her new book, “The Optimist’s Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age,” in which she talks about strategies for confronting massive problems like climate change.