Trump Accused Of Having ‘Stopped Working,’ Only Averaged One Event Per Day For Month Of January
President Donald Trump has been accused of having “stopped working” amid a considerably light public schedule that showed he only averaged one event per day throughout the month of January, the Independent reported.
The accusations come after a report from Axios last year that revealed that the president often does not officially start his day in the Oval Office until 11 a.m., and usually returns back to the residence around 6 p.m.
Thus far, today seems to be the heaviest day of his schedule for the week, per Fact Base, as he is penned to sign an executive order and meet with the vice premier of China. Other events from the week so far have included one intelligence briefing, a lunch with Vice President Mike Pence, a private campaign fundraiser at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., and a call with Venezuela’s Interim President Juan Guaido. On Tuesday, his schedule for the day showed no public events.
Throughout the month of January as a whole, Trump had a total of 32 events scheduled, not including personal fundraisers, private lunches, or his daily intelligence briefings, a number that falls short in comparison to the 39 events he had on his calendar in January of 2018. The Independent also noted that it has been nearly a week since the president has made a public appearance, though in the same stretch of time he has managed to log more than 45 tweets.
Author and former Capitol Hill staffer Joe Cirincione took note of the president’s considerably empty calendar on his Twitter account on Wednesday.
“Has anyone else noticed that Donald Trump has stopped working?” he asked. “For weeks, he’s had little or nothing on his schedule.”
Is it possible we're better off this way? Hard call, admittedly. President sitting around watching Fox News and hate-tweeting all day vs. President doing serious work to advance a terrible agenda. https://t.co/ayPupNDewk
— Dan Shapiro (@DanielBShapiro) January 31, 2019
CNN’s Don Lemon also called the president’s light schedule into question during last night’s airing of CNN Tonight, Newsweek reported.
“Looks like he’s having a whole lot of executive time behind closed doors in the White House,” the news anchor said, using air quotations around the term “executive time.”
Don Lemon Rips Trump's Light Schedule: He's Got a 'Whole Lot of Executive Time' These Days https://t.co/fn9CuII7Oz pic.twitter.com/mW4vp3hisM
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) January 31, 2019
He continued by displaying a graphic on the screen that detailed the events the president had on his calendar for the current week, placing heavy emphasis on the fact that the schedule only consisted of two meetings.
“You’ve got to wonder with everything going on, with all the storms buffeting the White House, is this president working hard or hardly working?” he said.
President Trump boasted about his hard work ethic during his presidential campaign, once telling a convention in 2015 that he “wouldn’t leave the White House” because of how hard he would be working.
