US President
Donald Trump is under fire for the length of his daily schedule, but he would
not be the first commander-in-chief to forgo a nine-to-five routine.
Mr Trump
takes his first meeting of the day at 11:00 after three hours of
"Executive Time", according to a White House schedule leaked to news
site Axios.
This is
largely designed to accommodate the time that he spends in the White House
residence watching TV and tweeting, according to the report.
The White
House responded that Mr Trump spends this time making important calls and
consistently "puts in long hours and long days nearly every day of the
week all year long".
The Axios
report highlights a long-standing criticism that Mr Trump spends too much time
in front of the television.
What is
Trump's usual schedule?
The schedule
released to Axios differs from schedules the White House sends to the media
every day.
According to
the report, the president has designated "Executive Time" from 8:00
to 11:00 in the Oval Office, but actually spends these hours in his residence
watching television, making phone calls and tweeting.
At about
11:00, the president emerges for his first meeting of the day, which is
typically an intelligence briefing.
During the
day he has a couple of meetings, with several breaks of "Executive
Time" interspersed, and returns to the residence at about 18:00, says
Axios.
According to
the report, this unscheduled "Executive Time" during the work day is
spent in the dining room next to the Oval Office where the president watches
cable news.
In one
example Axios presented, the president's schedule began at 11:00 with
"Policy Time", then "Executive Time" at 12:00, an hour for
lunch, followed by more "Executive Time" from 13:30.
The
president's daily schedule has changed over the duration of his first year in
office, according to the report.
At the
beginning of his tenure, it is said he would hold breakfast meetings in the
Roosevelt Room, but he has since pushed the start of his day back later and
later as his first year in office has progressed.
On days when
the president is travelling, his schedule often runs longer.
How early
have other presidents started?
Many other
presidents were known to have kept erratic schedules and most tailored their
daily itineraries to suit their own needs.
Barack Obama
began his days at about 9:00 or 10:00 after a daily morning exercise routine
and always made it back to the residence to have dinner with his family,
according to Matthew Dallek, a professor at George Washington University.
In contrast,
George W Bush tended to get to the Oval Office by 06:45, according to the Axios
report.
However,
while Mr Bush was known for starting and sleeping early, Mr Obama had
"night owl" habits and was known sometimes to stay up until 01:00 or
02:00 working after his family was asleep, Professor Dallek told the BBC.
Other
presidents, like both Lyndon B Johnson and Bill Clinton, were known to make
calls in the middle of the night.
The main
difference, Professor Dallek said, citing recent reports questioning Mr Trump's
mental health, is that Mr Trump's reported schedule could be detrimental to his
ability to govern effectively.
"There's
a chaos that this schedule reflects and breathes and encourages," he said.
Ronald
Reagan worked a shorter day towards the end of his presidency, according to the
academic.
In his last
couple of years in office, the president was said to have appeared divorced
from policy details and occasionally dozed off in meetings.
Mr Reagan
was diagnosed with Alzheimer's five years after he left office.
No comments:
Post a Comment