President Trump claims he doesn’t watch Morning Joe, but he seemed to be paying close attention on Monday morning as he apparently responded on Twitter to scathing criticism from co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski about his so-called “executive time.”
The president’s unorthodox schedule—which features large portions of “executive time,” in which Trump watches TV, tweets, and calls friends—has been repeatedly leaked to Axios via a White House source. The digital news site reported that newly obtained daily agendas, which were published over the weekend, show “the president spent 50 percent of the four days last week in non-structured ‘Executive Time.’”
During a segment about the Axios reports, Brzezinski derided the president, claiming that Trump’s day is filled with “playtime.” Scarborough deemed Trump’s schedule “an absolute joke.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“We’ve seen one person after another saying he often just hunkers down upstairs in the personal quarters, he spends of majority of his time watching cable news, tweeting, yelling, staring at TV sets like an old man in a retirement home instead of a President of the United States who is supposed to be working 24 hours a day,” continued Scarborough.
“I’m sure most older men in retirement homes live far more active lives than does Donald Trump, but for these people to come out and suggest—and for Donald Trump to suggest—he’s worked harder than most any president before him is just an absolute joke,” he added.
“Historians will record, when this presidency is over, that Donald Trump was the laziest president ever to occupy the Oval Office,” Scarborough concluded.
Within minutes of Scarborough’s rant, President Trump tweeted: “No president ever worked harder than me (cleaning up the mess I inherited)!”
Trump also defended himself after Axios’ second report, tweeting: “When the term executive time is used, I am generally working, not relaxing.”
He added, “In fact, I probably work more hours than almost any past President.”
The White House has, meanwhile, launched an internal hunt to find the source of the scheduling leaks.
