The New York Times has published a meticulously researched article on the daily routines of the most powerful man on the planet, and it is both disturbing and profoundly depressing.
The President of the United States of America, the NYT says, watches up to 8 hours of TV per day. While cable news like Fox is obviously his favourite, he also reportedly hate-watches MSNBC and CNN to get “fired up“.
And he also casually drinks a full dozen diet cokes per day.
According to the NYT piece, Donald Trump‘s aides have been trying – with limited success – to get Trump to show up to work by 9 or 9:30 in the morning, which makes me feel a bit better about my own worth ethic, actually.
They’re also trying to reduce the amount of time Trump has to tweet by filling his days with meetings, much as you would attempt to distract a toddler from mashing mayonnaise into your laptop by desperately turning on Peppa Pig.
Other gob-smacking nuggets of info include the fact that he’s been known to giddily call his mates after crafting “the perfect tweet“, that he can’t deal with not seeing himself on TV, and that he told bewildered members of the press that he doesn’t actually watch that much TV because of documents.
“I do not watch much television. I know they like to say – people that don’t know me – they like to say I watch television. People with fake sources – you know, fake reporters, fake sources. But I don’t get to watch much television, primarily because of documents. I’m reading documents a lot.”
1/ Some of the particularly terrifying highlights from this NYT step back on Trump’s mental state. 8 HOURS of TV a day https://t.co/1rwjCuI6cH pic.twitter.com/5VKobG7l0W
— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) December 9, 2017
According to his own aides Trump watches 4-8 hours of TV every day, regularly fails to show up for work by 9-930 even after urging from both of his Chiefs of Staff, and spends many days golfing.
That would get most Americans fired from their jobs. https://t.co/cjg1j9XcVJ
— Rep. Don Beyer (@RepDonBeyer) December 9, 2017
The president tweets, watches TV, and drinks Diet Coke. That’s basically it.
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) December 9, 2017
Meanwhile, the NYT says, “the West Wing team at times resolved not to let the tweets dominate their day“, talking about Trump’s staff as though they’re embattled war widows just trying to keep calm and carry on as the Blitz rattles their windows.
I highly recommend a read of the whole piece; it’s a portrait of a man still sincerely struggling to follow through with a task he’s woefully unprepared for, and it’s just as surreal, absurd and troubling as our first twelve months under Trump’s presidential lunacy. Happy New Year, friends. The future is bleak.
