Berlusconi Is Back. Again. This Time, as ‘Nonno’ to the Nation.
One person who spoke privately with the Berlusconi family about Mr. Trump said Mr. Berlusconi had a low opinion of the American president
and disliked being compared to him, though the comparisons seem nearly inevitable.
On Thursday night, as Mr. Berlusconi left the television studio to broker a key deal with coalition partners in his Roman palace, Rita Monaco, a 59-year-old member of the studio audience, said
that while Mr. Berlusconi could have "done without" the dirty joke about sex in the studio, she found him "positive and optimistic, notwithstanding everything." He had won her vote.
For God’s sake." Mr. Fede said that despite all the focus in Italian politics on social media, Mr. Berlusconi believed in the power of television.
"Surely Berlusconi doesn’t love it," agreed Giovanni Toti, a close ally of Mr. Berlusconi and the president of Liguria.
In the age of President Trump — comparisons to whom Mr. Berlusconi cannot stand — the Italian
mogul has successfully recast himself as grandfather, or nonno, to the nation.
In the event of an absolute electoral victory, a long shot, Mr. Berlusconi has said he would act as a movie director guiding
a handpicked "super candidate" or maybe — by the time the ban on his political participation is lifted in 2019 — himself.