‘Wrong!’: Trump Attacks Report He Watches TV 4-8 Hours a Day, Amplifying Report He Watches TV 4-8 Hours a Day

‘I Seldom, if Ever, Watch CNN or MSNBC, Both of Which I Consider Fake News’ Trump Claims

President Donald Trump just drew more attention to a New York Times report that states he watches between four and eight hours of TV a day. 

“People close to him estimate that Mr. Trump spends at least four hours a day, and sometimes as much as twice that, in front of a television, sometimes with the volume muted, marinating in the no-holds-barred wars of cable news and eager to fire back,” the Times report from Saturday states. 

“With Twitter as his Excalibur, the president takes on his doubters, powered by long spells of cable news and a dozen Diet Cokes,” it charges. 

“Around 5:30 each morning, President Trump wakes and tunes into the television in the White House’s master bedroom,” The New York Times article begins. “He flips to CNN for news, moves to ‘Fox & Friends’ for comfort and messaging ideas, and sometimes watches MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ because, friends suspect, it fires him up for the day.”

“Energized, infuriated — often a gumbo of both — Mr. Trump grabs his iPhone. Sometimes he tweets while propped on his pillow, according to aides. Other times he tweets from the den next door, watching another television. Less frequently, he makes his way up the hall to the ornate Treaty Room, sometimes dressed for the day, sometimes still in night clothes, where he begins his official and unofficial calls.”

The ammunition for his Twitter war is television. No one touches the remote control except Mr. Trump and the technical support staff — at least that’s the rule. During meetings, the 60-inch screen mounted in the dining room may be muted, but Mr. Trump keeps an eye on scrolling headlines. What he misses he checks out later on what he calls his “Super TiVo,” a state-of-the-art system that records cable news.

Monday morning, after a weekend that began with Friday night’s campaign rally designed to help him get Roy Moore elected, followed up by a Saturday visit to a Mississippi civil rights museum that drew boycotts from civil rights leaders, and golf Sunday at Mar-a-Lago, Trump posted this tweet:

Trump’s early AM tweets prove this claim false. He often tweets to or about “Fox & Friends,” and clearly responds to what he’s watching on the morning news shows via Twitter. 

And now, for those who didn’t read or hear about the Times piece, they know even more about his viewing habits.

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Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr and a CC license

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