Home Alone at the White House: A Sour President, With TV His Constant Companion

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President Trump arrives in the Oval Office these days as late as noon, when he is usually in a sour mood after his morning marathon of television.

He has been up in the White House master bedroom as early as 5 a.m. watching Fox News, then CNN, with a dollop of MSNBC thrown in for rage viewing. He makes calls with the TV on in the background, his routine since he first arrived at the White House.
As soon as he gets to the Oval Office, the president often receives his daily intelligence briefing, and Mr. Pence sometimes joins him. Then there are meetings with his national security team or economic advisers.

Throughout the day, Mr. Trump calls governors, will have lunch with cabinet secretaries and pores over newspapers, which he treats like official briefing books and reads primarily in paper clippings that aides bring to him. He calls aides about stories he sees, either to order them to get a world leader on the phone or to ask questions about something he has read.
The daily White House coronavirus task force briefing is the one portion of the day that Mr. Trump looks forward to, although even Republicans say that the two hours of political attacks, grievances and falsehoods by the president are hurting him politically.
Mr. Trump rarely attends the task force meetings that precede the briefings, and he typically does not prepare before he steps in front of the cameras. He is often seeing the final version of the day’s main talking points that aides have prepared for him for the first time although aides said he makes tweaks with a Sharpie just before he reads them live. He hastily plows through them, usually in a monotone, in order to get to the question-and-answer bullying session with reporters that he relishes.
When Mr. Trump finishes up 90 or more minutes later, he heads back to the Oval Office to watch the end of the briefings on TV and compare notes with whoever is around from his inner circle.
After he is done watching the end of the daily White House briefing — which is held seven days a week and sometimes goes as late as 8 p.m. — Mr. Trump watches television in his private dining room off the Oval Office. Assorted aides who are still around will join him to rehash the day and offer their assessments on the briefings.
The briefing’s critics, including Mr. Cuomo, have pointed out the obvious: With two hours of the president’s day dedicated to hosting what is still referred to as a prime-time news briefing, who is going to actually fix the pandemic?

Even Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, one of the experts appointed to advise the president on the best way to handle the outbreak, has complained that the amount of time he must spend onstage in the briefings each day has a “draining” effect on him.
His state of mind:

Mike Lindell, a Trump donor campaign surrogate and the chief executive of MyPillow, visited the White House later that month and said the president seemed so glum that Mr. Lindell pulled out his phone to show him a text message from a Democratic-voting friend of his who thought Mr. Trump was doing a good job.
The president’s aides have slowly lined up more opportunities to keep him engaged. Last week, a small group of coronavirus survivors were led into the White House, and Mr. Trump took one of them to see the White House physician. Then Mr. Trump hosted a celebration of America’s truckers on the South Lawn.
Comfort food — including French fries and Diet Coke — is readily available.
“He’s frustrated,” said Stephen Moore, an outside economic adviser to Mr. Trump who was the president’s pick to sit on the Federal Reserve Board before his history of sexist comments and lack of child support payments surfaced.
The current who's who:

That circle has shrunk significantly as the president, who advisers say is more sensitive to criticism than at nearly any other point in his presidency, has come to rely on only a handful of longtime aides.

Hope Hicks, a former communications director who rejoined the White House this year as counselor to the president, maintains his daily schedule. His former personal assistant, Johnny McEntee, now runs presidential personnel.

Ms. Hicks and Mr. McEntee, along with Dan Scavino, the president’s social media guru who was promoted this week to deputy chief of staff for communications, provide Mr. Trump with a link to the better old days. The three are the ones outside advisers get in touch with to find out if it’s a good time to reach the president or pass on a message.
... Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and de facto chief of staff.
 

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