CNN historian Douglas Brinkley wrote off President Donald Trump floating a fireside chat to read his Ukraine call, calling it “a horrific analogy for starters.”

“I mean, Franklin Roosevelt used fireside chats to beam his voice directly into homes that were combatting the Great Depression from 1933 to 1944 into World War II,” Brinkley told Ana Cabrera on CNN Newsroom Saturday night. “It was a way of uplifting spirits and making people feel good, exuding optimism. What President Trump is talking about is kind of a stunt a little more like filibustering in Congress when someone reads The Lorax by Dr. Seuss like Ted Cruz once did.”

“It just really to me seems just like something he babbled to The Washington Examiner,” Brinkley argued.

“Could it backfire?” Cabrera asked.

“I think it has the potential,” he responded. “It’s going to look like a hostage film if it is just him trying to read a transcript like that. You know, this idea of fireside chats, people like to steal from history. Jimmy Carter tried to do fireside chats and he wore a cardigan sweater and got booed and hissed off of the telecast because taking things from the past, claiming it for today really this is just–what Trump wants to do is defend himself and he thinks that perhaps him reading it might help.”

Watch above, via CNN.