People on earth and one of the least wellknown. But a new biography finally makes us understand tiger woods as he prepares to tee off at this weeks masters. Ill talk to one of the authors. But first, one of the more interesting stories this week was the huge audience that the revival of roseanne attracted when abc launched with two episodes tuesday night, the show had an average of 17. 7 Million Viewers in the first half hour, 18. 6 million in the second. It has already been renewed for a second season. The story of a working class family of five that hasnt been on air since 1997. Clearly struck a chord. And the question is why. Some will say that nostalgia is at play, but i discount that. The show did a strong 5. 1 share among adults 18 to 49. And 20 somethings who partially comprised the audience werent part of the runlg viidgeviewer. Others say it is the political subject matter. The series star in real life voted for President Trump and her character in the reboot is revealed to be a trump backer. Thank you to making America Great again. How could you have voted for him . He talked about jobs, jackie. He said hed shake things up. I mean, this might come as a complete shock to you, but we almost lost our house the way things are going. Have you looked at the news . Because now things are worse. Not on the real news. Oh, please the president thinks it is that simple, he called the real life roseanne on wednesday to congratulator. And on thursday in ohio, he told his audience this. Even look at roseanne, i called her yesterday. Look at her ratings. Look at her ratings. I got a call from mark burnett, a great guy. He said i called just to say hello. And to tell you did you zero s w rosean roseannes ratings . Over 18 million people. And it was about us. Here is the thing about that us. Look at the top markets for the debut. It is a red state checklist. Cincinnati, tulsa, indianapolis, kansas city. Liberal enclaves like new york and l. A. , they didnt crack the top 20 markets. And that fits what ben sherwood president of abc told the New York Times that this was a heartland strategy. He says that the day after the president s election, abc executives looked at one another and to their credit said there is a lot about this country we need to learn a lot more about. He said that roseannes revival was a direct effort to reach an audience that they were underservi underserving. I get all that. Im sure it is accurate. But on this the day before easter and the day after many enjoyed family at seder, i thin. While roseanne supported candidate trump, her sister jackie is revealed to be a hillary supporter who nevertheless voted for jill stein. That is a real snapshot into america. A world where the all or nothing red state or blue state pore frayed by Cable Television news is not reality. For many of us, enjoying the company of friends and relatives this weekend our worlds will be much more like roseannes than the narrative we see in our leaders and their media mouthpieces. This weekend many of us will be a butter knife away from a loved one who sees the world differently. The president said roseanne was all about us and he is correct. But it is not just about that ohio crowd. It is about all of us. I want to know what you think. Go to smerconish. Com, answer this question. Roseannes ratings success is more attributable to the shows politics or the shows quality . Through all the staff chaos, the resignations, indictments, porn star scandals and twhoeets, the president s poll numbers are going up. Last month 35 to 42 . It remains steady among ds in the basement at 5 . But for republicans, his approval has risen from 80 to 86 and among independents, a six point rise from 35 to 41 . Neal newhouse is partner and cofounder of the premiere republican polling organization, he was lead polster for governor mitt romney in 2012. Youre a political polling guy. But i must ask you about television ratings. I want to know if you see a connection between roseannes success and this new data showing an uptick for the president. My first question is, what took so long for the networks to kind of get it in terms of programming. You look at the country right now, and it reflects obviously President Trumps numbers, but 37 of americans are conservatives. 47 have a gun in their household. 70 of americans describe themselves as either working class or middle class. This is flyover at that data, right in tempts top ten markets red state with the exception of chicago. This is the heartland of the country. There wasnt a single coastal city in the top ten there. The networks there is an appetite out there in Middle America for this kind of programming, for real programming, that has some conservative elements to it. To what do you attribute the uptick in the president s numbers . Is it the economy stupid . Well, i discounts any one single poll. I dont think President Trumps numbers have moved seven points. But what i did, i take a look at the last accept kridable sseven and reweighted it. And he has edged up among republicans, but his major among has been among independents. And i think what is really pushing that is the perception that were in good economic times. If you look at the other polling data showing economic numbers, americans were more positive toward the economy than they have been in more than a decade. And some data indicates more than since the turn of the seis event ch century. So i think it is economy and secondly it is the president showing strength. This is the man that voters thought they were electing. He has shown strength with respect to tariffs, with the economy, and now taking on and working with north korea for instance. So i think it is an example of the president being strong and the economy kind of boosting his numbers somewhat. Is he wise politically speaking, is he wise to take on amazon . Because when he speaks of the size of amazon and amazon posing a threat to brick and mortar, mom and pop operations, i get that. On the other hand, dont interrupt my amazon prime. Im expecting a delivery today. You and i both are i think. I think it is an interesting strategy. I think he is playing back to his roots of kind of small town rural mom and pop businesses, small businesses. People who think that they have really been hurt by this. People who are not able to kind of keep up with technology. So whether that is a good play or bad play long term, im not sure kret. But it is really interesting. You wonder how much it is tied to his antipathy toward the Washington Post and other, but there is a sense that amazon has cost main street cities and towns across the country hundreds of thousands of jobs. I talked about roseannes ratings and roseanne for all the strength of her tuesday night showing lagged behind where Anderson Cooper was in interviewing Stormy Daniels last sunday night. I mean the nation turned out to watch stormy. But politically speaking, cant we conclude now it is not moving the needle . The white house quote unquote chaos, all the day so is, not moving the needle . It is not moving the needle because it is already baked in. People know that the president maybe messed around. This is not new news. What moves the needle is when voters are exposed something new. And something they maybe didnt expect. That is just not the case here. And so a little more turmoil in the white house or the Stormy Daniels its interesting. You want to tune in, but it wont change anybodys opinions. Those numbers arent going to change because of Stormy Daniels. But the one thing i think that is really interesting is if you look at President Trumps numbers over the past year since hes been elected, he has traded with very narrow band. His high has been 45 , his low has been 35 . And when you compare that to other previous president s, george w. , bill clinton, obama, those president s in the first year, year and a half in office, they were on a 30 point margin between their highest number and their lowest number. Which really indicates to me that even though President Trump has maybe a rock hard floor and rock hard base, he has a very low ceiling. And the ceiling right now is probably not much more than 45 . Which is really unusual for a first term president. I appreciate your analysis. I dont share your desire for kansas to win tonight against nova. But thank you for being here anyway. Nik and he wimichael, you wot in this tshirt. Not going to do it. Going for jay wright and the villa nova wildcats. Thank you, appreciate it very much. Tweet me, go to my facebook page. I will read some responses throughout the program. What has come in already . American voters are taking our country and values back one roseanne at a time. Look out hollywood. Mike, this is pilot season. And i am sure this ratings success for abc on tuesday night has completely up ended that which is in the pipeline. One more if we have time. I watched nostalgically. I dont think watching is a political statement. And if so, im team jackie. Hey, everything old is new again. I mean, you know, u2 was out doing the joshua tree on concert. I loved seeing steely dan create asia. I get that some of it is nostalgia. But that is not a complete explanation. I want to remind you to answer the survey question at roseannes ratings success is more at contributri attributabl politics or nostalgia . Coming up next, President Trump going to war against amazon. Is he wright and is he hurting his call by politicizing this . Ill talk to the former ceo of toys r us. M, so people watching will be like, wow, maybe ill glow too if i book direct at choicehotels. Com. Who glows . Just say, badda book. Badda boom. Book now at choicehotels. Com. Looking for a hotel that fits. Whoooo. Your budget . Tripadvisor now searches over. 200 sites to find you the. Hotel you want at the lowest price. Grazi, gino find a price that fits. Tripadvisor. Try revitalift triple power antifrom loreal. I have more confidence. My coworkers were like, your skin looks great revitalift triple power visibly reduces wrinkles, refirms and smooths texture in one week. Guaranteed, or your money back. From loreal paris. Come fly with me, lets fly, lets fly away. Hey, sir losealot thou hast the patchy beard of a prepubescent squire thy armor was forged by a feeblefingered peasant woman. Your mom as long as hecklers love to heckle, you can count on geico saving folks money. Boring fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. President trump stepped up his ongoing attack of amazon firing off two more tweets this morning accusing it of murdering the u. S. Economy. The president has been attacking amazon for not paying its share of state and local taxes, draining resources from the u. S. Postal service and driving other retailers out of business. The president hats been accused of singling out amazon for criticism because its Ceo Jeff Bezos also owns the Washington Post which is regularly a thorn in the president s side. But is he right . I asked my sirius xm listeners this week whether the president s criticism of amazon was founded over 4,000 voted and we had a statistical dead heat. Joining me now is the former ceo of toys r us. And former vice chair of target. He is now the ceo ceo of stornl advisors. Let put back on the screen the morning tweets from the president. They say this. While we are on the subject, it is reported that the u. S. Post office will lose 1. 50 on average for each package it delivers for amazon. The size of the companys lobbying staff has ballooned. Before i deal with that, let me ask you about the post office criticism. Is it founded as far as you know . Well, it is very difficult to break that out. Benjamin franklin is turning over in his grave. As you know being there in philadelphia, the reason for the post office was to deliver first class mail. Unfortunately, that is on steep decline as people use email, facebook, other ways to communicate. So the post office has moved to Parcel Delivery as a saving hail mary pass. The problem is they lose money in total in general. How would you like to run a business that is overseen by the government . Which are you, government or business . So basically a utility that loses money. So the question is, as it becomes more and more a Package Service and its still losing money, are we subsidizing a for Profit Company in amazon. One study says that they do lose money on each package they deliver. Others argue with it. But most of the articles have been as to superficial because they just look at revenues and they say the Revenue Growth is growing, so amazon is good for the post office. But my bet is if i really got in there and tore apart the cost of operation there, what you would see on the margins they make money, but if you fully load the cost, they lose money on each package they deliver 37. My kids dont even know what a number 10 envelope is. 37. My kids dont even know what a number 10 envelope is. 7. My kids dont even know what a number 10 envelope is. My kids dont even know what a number 10 envelope is. Seems like such a snapshot from the past. So i get that the post Office Problems are much more deep than whatever the amazon deal might be. Let me ask you this. Especially given your target and your toys r us background, what the president says relative to Big Box Stores or brick and mortar locations, he is absolutely right there, is he not . Amazon is great. And jeff bezos is a genius. So they are mostly good for the world. He is a revolutionary. But they are not all good and they wont be good forever the way things are going. So i have argued for over 20 years that amazon needs to charge sales tax. They started in 1995, they should have charged it from the beginning. Only most recently have they charged on first party sales and they dont collect sales tax in the Third Party Market place. All this is based in . Antiquated Supreme Court decision preamazon where the court begged congress to get involved and fix what it called a quagmire and it hasnt been fixed in all that time. And so jeff has done what any Good Business person would do. He has used what i think is a mistake and a loophole in the law to avoid charging sales tax, it helped them get started. Even today, it is favoring this huge volume of Third Party Marketplace sellers on amazon over main street, putting people out of business. These are people on main street who have to collect the sales tax and it is not lost on customers that it costs more to buy it when you have to pay the sales tax. These are people who soouupporte neighborhood hockey team, give money towards schools, roads, et cetera. So it is a big problem and all weve ever asked as retailers is it for a level playing field. How ridiculous that amazon should have this advantage. So that is stris just horrible. And axios has reported this week that the president has spoken ever changing the governments tax policy with regard to amazon. Does it feel a little personal . I tell you that the president s opposition to the at t time washer mergers that always felt a little personal to me taking out his an tip antipathy toward cnn. Well, you cant deal with someones motive. The fact is that amazon does not collect sales tax on the Third Party Market place and amazon pays little or no taxes. So it is a great company, but they dont have to make any money. And everyone else does. And as our business shifts from bricks and mortar to line oig, we see lower profitability and yet we are supposed to make money. So they dont have income, so that brings you you to the last topic that has been increasingly on everyones mind, is there some form of antitrust action that should be taken or required against amazon. Now, by highway my way of think have to do something wrong. And i dont think that they have done anything wrong. They have gotten large by being great, by running their business well. But future could be different as their search business has grown tremendously, right now over half of all searches for products on the internet are done on amazon. Com and they are buying up a lot of google search. So they are controlling a huge part of the search market. Secondly, their automation through alexa is the leading home automation device. So if that is a closed system and only way to getting access is through search and home automation, i see this might become critically important along the lines of what weve seen in a lot of antitrust cases. Microsoft was a great got into trouble over tying Internet Explorer with their windows products. I dont see the clock getting turned back. I lack your credentials in this regard, but i think we are all now so accustomed and enjoy using our devices to make purchases that even if the government were to break up amazon and like you i dont see an antitrust violation that they can hang their hat on, but i think that it will just be replaced by some other internet based purchasing capability. You get 30 seconds for the final word. Amazon is a fantastic experience. Jeff bezos is brilliant. They should collect sales taxes line everyone else and crib to our local economies in a proper way. And as far as i see it, they have won to this point by being a fantastic competitor and ofrping the customer what she wants. Jerry, thank you. Appreciate you being here. Let us see what you are saying. Should we go back to horse and buggies . Darn those things called automobiles that put those horses out of business. I get it, mary. Hit me with the next one. Bezos is the richest man in the world and uber successful. Trump is going after him because he is jealous. Trump has to borrow money from the russians because every venture he touches failed. Angry american. You are angry, arent you . I dont know that he is jealous of him, but the criticism that comes from the Washington Post that he regards as being unfounded, it is hard not to believe that that is a factor in the president s thinking. Up next, this week tiger woods tees off at the masters where he won his first victory 21 years ago. Ill talk to the coauthor of the new biography that many say finally reveals the real tiger. When he was 11 mo