This is a special preview from the New Yorker Radio Hour.

December 21, 1987.

Dear Donald, I did not see the program, but Mrs. Nixon told me that you were great on the Donahue show, and as you can

imagine, she is an expert on politics, and she predicts that whenever you decide to run for office,

you will be a winner, with warm regard sincerely, Richard Nixon.

That's a letter from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump that the new president said

he was going to hang in the White House. It's not hard to find parallels between the two men,

particularly the hatred of the news media and the so-called elites. But maybe Nixon's blessing was

not such a good omen for Trump, because the new administration right

off the bat is engulfed by a scandal, inevitably nicknamed Rushagate. That's reminding a lot

of commentators of Nixon's Watergate. The New Yorkers Amy Davidson talked about those parallels

recently with one of Nixon's inner circle. John Dean was the White House counsel who advised Nixon,

but eventually testified against him in the Watergate hearings. Since then, Dean has written

extensively about politics and the presidency. You've spent thousands of hours listening to

and transcribing Nixon's secret White House recordings. Do you hear the echoes now when you,

when you hear Trump? He talks about himself rhetorically, would like to talk about himself as

Ronald Reagan's heir. But in terms of his language, his style, how much is he Nixon's air? He is very much Nixon's air. Like Nixon,

you hear Trump speak in the third person. He hasn't started using, as Nixon did, the royal we.

But he's approaching that. But he does talk about Trump as a persona that he refers to.

I guess I see it most in the fact they both look for their enemies

and hold great resentment towards those they perceive as their enemies.

I would have thought we all learned a lesson from Nixon having enemies list and things of that nature, but it seems not.

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