Donald Trump is well along in his transformation into a reclusive hermit like Howard Hughes, according to a Politico report published Sunday, although the "president" hasn't yet stopped cutting his nails or taken to wandering around with Kleenex boxes on his feet -- as far as anyone knows. Even odds that he's already storing his urine in jars, though, especially given top backer Robert Mercer's fondness for that wacky Oregon pee doctor. Politico reports Trump has increasingly shunned the Oval Office because he doesn't trust all those disloyal monsters who somehow ended up working for him, and prefers to "work" in the White House residence where he won't be bothered by staffers. Easier to barricade, too.
According to "a half dozen current and former senior administration officials," Trump increasingly prefers to do whatever presidenting he has to from the second floor of the White House, which has
become the place where Trump feels most productive, where he avoids meddling by his staff and where he speed-dials his network of confidantes, GOP lawmakers and TV pundits.
Also, he can watch all the Fox News he wants up there, where he's told that he's doing a great job and is very smart and popular. By not setting foot in the West Wing, Trump can avoid staffers and their interference with his grand designs. That paranoia has only gotten worse due to his frustration over "the whistleblower complaint and a parade of administration officials testifying on Capitol Hill," because why is everyone so disloyal to him? Don't they know he's the president, and therefore always right?
In one of the piece's best laugh lines, Politico describes Trump's residential Fortress of Solitude as "a sanctuary to work and think," which leaves us wondering whether he does that with his right or left hand.
Not surprisingly, a "former senior administration official" explained this is all very normal and very cool, because Donald Trump is simply an out of the box kind of guy:
The Oval presents itself as historic and it gives off a sense of power, but the residence has a sense of exclusivity [...] He works more in the residence because he is not constrained there by staffers knocking on the door.
And in the residence, he feels a lot more comfortable telling visitors to wear surgical masks and disposable nitrile gloves in his presence. He has reasons.
Trump has held job interviews in the residence, including the meeting where Mick Mulvaney got stuck with being (acting) chief of staff, and he also made the July 25 call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from the residence, too.
Trump does at least show up to the Oval Office and its attached private dining room for some five to six hours daily, because you can't be "president" without some "formal meetings, lunches and ceremonial events," or at least Trump hasn't found a way to shirk them altogether. But really, he'd rather stay in private so he can watch TV and tweet from the toilet:
But the bulk of his work in the mornings, late afternoons, evenings and weekends happens in his private quarters where Trump can call staff and advisers as early as 6 a.m. and up to midnight. Sometimes he or one of his aides will summon a senior staffer to the residence for an informal discussion or quick meeting to review a speech.
He also uses it during working hours as a place to watch TV freely, tweet and serve as his own one-man communications director and political strategist. The residence serves like a bunker for his impeachment response and his real-time reaction to testimony, witnesses and public hearings.
And just in case any of you haters think there's anything the least bit odd about the chief executive holing up in his room like a moody adolescent, another "former senior administration official" explained there's nothing at all unusual about any of this, OK? Trump's increasing retreat to his happy place is
not an attempt on the president's part to hide things. He is a workaholic, so he wakes up early and works out of the residence. It's just the way his internal work clock has been for decades[.]
That anyone can still manage to say Donald Trump is a "workaholic" at this point is a testament to ... something. Self-delusion? Terminal obsequiousness?
Also, it is completely normal for presidents to sit naked on a couch covered with towels, watching and re-watching videotapes of election night 2016.
Has he ever told you about how nobody thought he could win the electoral vote, but then he won in an unprecedented landslide? Just look at this map! Oh, watch your step, you don't want to knock over that jar there.
[Politico]
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