Leaked Schedules Show Trump’s Work Days Are Mostly Empty

According to Axios, the president “never” comes to the office before 11 a.m.

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

President Donald Trump claims he is working hard as president. His private schedules suggest otherwise.

On Sunday, Axios published Trump’s private schedules for almost every working day since the midterm elections of November 2018. The documents show the president has spent a whopping 60 percent of his work days during that period in “Executive Time.” The term, according to Axios, was first pushed by former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly to refer to the private, unscheduled time that Trump reportedly spends watching television, tweeting, and making phone calls.

While the schedules show that Trump usually passes the morning in Executive Time, Trump’s standard practice is to remain in the residence until his first scheduled meeting around 11 a.m. But before then, Axios reports that he “is never in the Oval during those hours, according to six sources with direct knowledge.”

In a statement to Axios, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended Trump’s work habits, saying they provided “time to allow for a more creative environment that has helped make him the most productive President in modern history.”

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate